Golden vision for men with mussels

WAY OF LIFE: Waylon Brown (left) and Cost Peters use "walking wheels" to lift buoys and the

"backbone" lines on a Gold Ridge mussel farm to re-seed it with juvenile greenshell mussels

encased in stocking to keep them next to the dropper rope until they form a secure attachment

of their own. By Elaine Fisher

HARVEST COMPLETE: One of Gold Ridge Farm's mussel barges heads back to Sugar Loaf wharf in

the Coromandel Harbour to unload a morning's harvest of greenshell mussels ready for

distribution to North Island supermarkets.ABOVE: David Myers, operations manager of Gold

Ridge, opens mussels taken straight from droppers on one of the Coromandel marine farms.

LEFT: Bags of young greenshell mussels have been graded for consistent size before being used

to re-seed a section of one of Gold Ridge Marine Farm's mussel farms in the Coromandel

Harbour. Gold Ridge Marine Farm

The thriving mussel farming industry off the Coromandel Peninsula may owe its existence to a

Peruvian earthquake in the 1960s.

Industry pioneer Gilbert James doesn't discount the possibility that the tidal wave created

by the quake across the other side of the Pacific may have destroyed the Coromandel wild

mussel population but whatever the cause, he was able to see an opportunity for farming

mussels to meet the needs of an already established market.

"Wild Coromandel mussels harvested by dredges had been in demand and available for 50 years

in Auckland and the Waikato, including sports clubs and fish shops," he said.

While his father Joe James believed over-dredging of the beds by harvest boats probably

caused the demise of the wild mussels, Gilbert said another theory was that the tidal wave

was to blame.

"In New Zealand it passed almost unnoticed as it happened at low tide but Coromandel locals

remember the tide coming in when it shouldn't have and then receding to below normal levels.
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It opened up an area between the mainland and Whanganui Island now called Little Passage and

many people think it moved sediment from the Waihau River and upper Thames Estuary over the

beds smothering the mussels which died and became putrid and the beds never recovered."

However, even though the wild mussels began to disappear in the 1960s it wasn't until 1984,

after years of planning and application rejections that Gilbert finally gained a licence to

establish a mussel farm in the Hauraki Gulf.

Today the company Gilbert named Gold Ridge Marine Farm is a thriving business in the Gulf and

supplies most North Island supermarkets with fresh mussels year round.

It's been a long and sometimes troublesome voyage to reach that point.

Gilbert grew up in Coromandel, the town his great grandfather Samuel James came to from

England in 1875, lured by gold mining. Samuel established a merchant's store, supplying

mining equipment, including dynamite, and general goods. Today his name is preserved in the

main street park where he built rest rooms for mothers and babies and in the James & Turner

store not far up the road.

It was Gilbert's grandfather Arthur James who bought an abandoned gold mine and the land

around it at Preeces Point just south of Coromandel where today Gold Ridge Marine farm has

its land-based operation.

"We didn't live here, but as a child this was my playground. We roamed freely around the

hills and harbour," said Gilbert. There's still gold in the old mine which was abandoned when

the seam was lost. Gilbert has no plans to re-open it - he's more interested in what he calls

the gold in waters of the Gulf - the greenshell mussels.

By the 1960s Gilbert had left Coromandel, working first as a shearer and then as production

manager for Wattie's at a maize starch factory in Auckland. However, much as he enjoyed that

experience, he was already planning to farm mussels.

"I knew there was at least a 2000 bag market between Auckland and the Waikato."

Mussel farming began in Marlborough before it got started in Coromandel and Gilbert and other

North Island marine farmers were able to learn from the South Island experience, adapting

techniques to suit local conditions.

Having a land base was essential and for that Preeces Point proved ideal, providing the

ability to bring a flat bottom mussel barge in close to shore. However, the barges load and

unload their harvest and all their farm gear at the Sugar Loaf wharf not far from Preeces

Point.

Gilbert believes in running an efficient and cost effective operation, employing the best

people he can and carrying out as much of the operation as possible in house.

That includes manufacturing the distinctive large black mussel buoys which support the 'back

bones' and droppers of the marine farms.

"If we needed a large number of buoys in a hurry we often couldn't get them and don't have

the room to stock pile them so we decided to make our own. It's far easier to store 15kg bags

of the raw material than buoys and moulding them also gives staff diversity of work which

they enjoy."

Key mussel buoy maker is Trish Janmaat. She can produce one buoy an hour using the large

mould, filled with granulated plastic, which is baked in a special oven which reaches

temperatures of 270C. The mould constantly revolves inside the oven, causing the melted

plastic to adhere to the sides to produce the buoys.

"When we first started we cut the buoys open to find out how well they had been moulded. I

didn't care how many we destroyed so long as we got the method right," said Gilbert, who

expects the buoys, which retail at about $140 each, to last up to 10 years.

Threading 6km of cotton "stocking" onto a 110mm diameter pvc pipe is another essential task

and David Blythe, Gold Ridge operations manager and Gilbert's partner in a mussel farm in

Wilson's Bay, demonstrated how the stocking is automatically fed onto the pipe in preparation

for use during re-seeding of juvenile mussels out on the water.

Outside in the yard are large mussel sacks full of what looks like frayed rope. Gilbert

explains that the rope's 'frayed' nature gives extra surface area for the mussels to attach

to.

He's impressed at a new rope invented by Nick Franklin of Auckland especially for mussel

farmers.

"It is a braided, not twisted rope so it's not constantly trying to unwind like the ropes

we've used for years have. I think it's pretty remarkable that someone can invent a new rope

and that's just what Nick has done."

To understand how the buoys, stockings, ropes and shellfish all come together, Gilbert and

David took us out to see a re-seeding operation on one of the farms in the sheltered waters

off Rabbit Island.

We watched as Costa Peters and Waylon Brown finished harvesting young mussels from one of the

outer lines of the farm, stripping the shells from the rope in a machine mounted on the barge

deck, and grading them for size.

"It's better to be growing mussels of a similar size together, because they will all mature

around the same time, " said David.

The crew began work at day light but within just a few hours the mussels were back in the

water. Bags were hoisted by an on-board hiab and emptied into a hopper, to be released at a

pre-determined rate into the stocking-covered pvc pipe through the middle of which ran the

continuous growing rope.

The stocking holds the mussels close to the rope until they re-attach, often within hours,

and over the next few weeks the fabric rots in the salt water, allowing the mussels to grow

to harvest size.

Today nearly every supermarket has fresh mussels on sale and in the North Island nearly 50

per cent will be from the Gold Ridge farms, harvested four times a week and delivered fresh

by another partner company, Future Cuisine.

To ensure food safety and the quality of greenshell mussels there are strict conditions

around when they can be harvested.

Because mussels are filter feeders, they can't be harvested for a prescribed period after

heavy rain which may wash containments and bacteria into the sea.