[jshepherd]

It has been a good trip. The pace is a little slow for my taste and presentations are far from technical, but it still has been fun.

We are stuck in Tahiti with an extra day as our New Zealand flight has been delayed for more than 12 hours.

I met with Josh Humbert last night. We did some business and went to dinner.

[boo]

Originally Posted by jshepherd

We are stuck in Tahiti with an extra day as our New Zealand flight has been delayed for more than 12 hours.

Well, if you have to be stuck someplace, I suppose you could do worse than Tahiti! (my delayed flights tend to involve O'Hare in Chicago in the middle of winter - that is NOT fun...)

[Caitlin]

Did you go to the Pearl Museum in Papeete? Did you see/talk with Robert Wan? I am wondering what they think of the PoA?

[jshepherd]

G'day from Australia!

We are in the backpacker's paradise of Darwin. We arrived from Christchurch yesterday, visiting the blue pearl farm of Eyris.

Tomorrow we are seeing every Paspaley of Darwin, then we are taking a seaplane out to the operation on Friday.

I will have a full account of the trip, day be day, when I get back. I have about 1000 photos as well.

Caitlin,

Robert Wan was a no-show in Tahiti. His son Bruno Wan was there, however. He was the perfect host.

The museum was better than I remembered. It had moved and had been remodeled. I did not ask anyone there about PoA, unfortunately. But one thing I can guarantee - it is not there!

[knotty panda]

Jeremy, thanks for the update! I love those Eyris blue pearls. They were my favorite until a couple of weeks ago. What did you all do with Blair? She's been mighty quiet! I'm telling you, Cobb's kids took it out in the backyard to play football and when they broke a neighbor's window with it, the neighbor confiscated it then threw it away! Be safe!

[jshepherd]

GemGeek fell off the boat in Tahiti and we lost her...

No, she is just having too much fun. We have been in separate groups for a lot of this trip, but everytime I see her she is laughing and smiling (even at 4:00 a.m.)!

[GemGeek]

Blaire is back, but just barely! Jeremy is like the energizer bunny -- zero jetlag and boundless energy. I tried to catch up on the postings in the wee sleepless hours of last night, but no such luck. You guys are prolific!

Jeremy brought a laptop, so he was able to email from his hotel room while on the tour. The hotels had community computers that had the world's slowest dial-up connections and were very expensive. I could have called home every day for the cost of a couple of emails. But, hopefully I will make it up with story and photos.

Jeremy has seen a lot of this stuff before, so it probably got a bit tedious at times. Not for me! We had hardly got off the plane from Los Angeles, when we had to board the private Wan Air flight to Marutea, 1000 miles away from Tahiti.

And here we are on the atoll...


Just inches from hungry sharks -- supposedly benign hungry sharks, which were being fed by the people doing the cooking.

Later that night we were treated to a sunset walk on the beach...


And my friend Leslie saw whales and she yelled to all the people on the beach so we would look. Well, whenever the whales arched out of the water, we all cheered. That made them curious, so they came closer and started to frolic on our behalf.

We finally made our way down the beach to have a glass of champagne (sounds really good until you factor in the man-eating mosquitos) and the whales followed us. One of them stood straight out of the water and gave us the eye. Then they all gave us several waves of their fins -- high fin, low fin -- you know It was mystical.

There was nothing to interrupt the sea and the sky. It was magnificent.

The next day we observed the grafting process for the Tahitian pearls. I got a great close-up video of nucleation, but I'm not allowed to post it. I will post a shark video when I get a chance.

On the night I wore Jeremy's pearls, he was off having dinner with Josh. No invite -- totally unfair But I hear they did some great business.

After spending way too much money in Tahiti, we spent a day in Moorea due to the delay of our flight to New Zealand. It was supposed to leave at 8:00 a.m. and didn't leave until midnight.

We were supposed to have two days in New Zealand to see the Eyris Blue Pearl operations. For anyone who knows me, I have been obsessed with Eyris Blue Pearls for forever, so I was upset that we would miss something. We took a vote and agreed that we would clean up and go out right away without sleeping, so we did eventually get to see everrything.

It was beyond my wildest dreams. Roger Beattie, who runs and owns the business showed us every step in processing the shells right down to the finished gems, ready to set. The next day, we drove to Akaroa Bay and Roger took us out to their operations at sea and showed us the Paua Abalones and their pearls in progress.

Here is a photo of how beautiful they can be...


Off to Darwin Australia to visit Paspaley Pearls. Here we flew by sea plane to the water operations on the Paspaley III ship. I got to midwife a pearl birth by squeezing out a pearl. Too cool. They are lovely right out of the shell. More photos later & a video, but here I am on the boat to Kuri Bay where we had a fabulous lunch. Worn out, but happy.

Gee, I am getting a reputation for being happy and smiling a lot, but it's hard not to smile when you're in pearl heaven. Okay, I also was the comedian on the trip. Everyone was so serious, so somebody had to do it!

The next day we went to Paspaley's office to the pearl grading room. Wow! Pearls EVERYWHERE! Here is a photo of us handling them...


That's it for now. I'll report more later.
Blaire, the pearl reporter

[pattye]

Hi Blaire,

I am thrilled for you and your Great Pearly Adventure, and totally jealous, too! Also love, love, love you for reporting all the fab details.
Looking forward to the next installment---

Pattye
so many pearls, so little time

ps I notice something lovely and glowing around your neck in the next to last photo.

[GemGeek]

Originally Posted by pattye

ps I notice something lovely and glowing around your neck in the next to last photo.

Why, yes, that's a gem grade Eyris Blue Pearl! Note how small it is -- they are very precious. I had planned to get Eyris Blue Pearls, so I had set aside some money for them. I did not plan on getting Tahitians or South Seas, but I did. With each purchase retirement is fading into the distance...

Photos of the new jewelry to come later
Blaire

[GemGeek]

Originally Posted by Caitlin Williams

Did you go to the Pearl Museum in Papeete? Did you see/talk with Robert Wan? I am wondering what they think of the PoA?

I hate being clueless, but what is the PoA?

Cheers,
Blaire

[jshepherd]

Pearl of Allah, pearl queen... pearl of Allah!

Glad to see you finally woke up!

[GemGeek]

It's a small world when you can use code for famous pearls -- only on "P-G"!

[salem]

Hi Blaire,

What fantastic photos you got, and your Eyris Blue pearl shows really well on you, It must be amazing in person. Glad to see you must have had an amazing time. The handfuls of pearls must have been hard to put down. Can't wait to hear more details. I have to live this adventure through you.

[Sueki]

Hello Blaire,
Many, many thanks for sharing. What a fabulous experience!
It's been great to read your diary and see the photos., and I, too, look forward to the next installment.
Great posts, thanks again.

[jshepherd]

GemGeek just had too much fun!
You can see Robert Wan's plane in the background. That little prop-job shuttled our entire group back and forth to his island - Robert Wan Airlines.