Suwaidi Pearl Farm Tour: The Only Pearl Farm In The Middle East
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Take a boat ride out into the shallow waters of Al Rams village, and you’ll find a trip back through 6,000 years of pearl diving history
You’ll find Suwaidi Pearl Farm out in the shallow waters of Al Rams, a small fishing village in Ras al Khaimah. It’s only accessible by boat - which meant we got to start our tour with a boat ride. Never a bad thing.
We spent the next half hour cruising through the shallow waters that run alongside the coastline of Ras al Khaimah. Flying fish occasionally appeared alongside us. Jellyfish were visible beneath the water’s surface. The water, our guide Othman told us, was treacherously shallow in places, and it took a keen eye to make out the shadows in the waters that indicated where was safe to drive. Despite this, we were all allowed behind the ship’s wheel for a few minutes each. I hadn’t steered a boat since a canal holiday in Worcestershire ten years ago. I suspect boat driving is all about confidence, of which I have none.
Suwaidi Pearl Farm looks quite unremarkable from the outside, a wooden, shack-like building that’s a couple of floors high. As we clambered aboard, Othman served us espresso-sized cups of coffee that was flavoured with cardamom.
“... the most perfect and exquisite of all other [pearls], be they gotten about Arabia”
Pearl diving in the Middle East: A 6,000-year story
Othman began to guide us through the long and illustrious history of pearl diving in the Gulf. It dates as long back as the Neolithic Era - the world’s oldest known pearl was found at Umm Al Quwain, only 70km away. For thousands of years, these pearls made their way into the treasure chests of the high-born, with pearls in the area being discovered in archaeological digs in Iran.
Our guide next showed us a traditional pearl diver’s get-up. A piece of tortoiseshell was used as a noseclip. A string basket was worn around the neck. A stone was attached to one leg to send the diver down to the seabed. Being honest, a pearl diver’s life did not sound much fun. They started the day with a breakfast of dates and tea, to keep their stomachs light, and would dive many dozens of times a day, repeatedly jumping on, soaring down, then being hauled back to deck, again and again. Divers would go as deep as 27m, and for as long as three minutes each time.
Then, Othman moved on to the practicalities of pearl farming. Our guide explained the difference between natural and cultured pearls. The first are to be found out in the natural world, and are astonishingly rare: for every pearl you discover inside an oyster from the sea, there’ll be another 10,000 that are empty. Cultured oysters, by contrast, are kept in farms and are seeded: pearls are artificially propagated inside them. It’s a delicate process: with a knife, you have to gently, partially tease open the oyster and slip a piece of material - ideally mother-of-pearl - into the oyster’s gonad. (Then you promise to call them the next day, obviously.)
He laid out what looked like a slab of seabed; every now and again, what I think was organic life spurted gobbets of water across the decking. Othman held up baskets of cultured oysters at various stages of their life cycle. Cultured oysters can live as long as 5 years, and growing pearls inside them requires patience and long-term thinking. It almost sounded like wine-making.
Next came the really fun part. Othman let everyone in the group choose an oyster in a tank, each of which would be opened to see if - hopefully - a pearl was discovered inside. I wasn’t so lucky with my oyster; instead, we washed and ate it. But when somebody else’s oyster was cut open, we all gasped as our guide pushed out a pearl from the oyster’s flesh.
Priceless treasures
We then moved up to the upper deck of the farm, where Othman opened what turned out to be quite literally a treasure chest, containing several drawstring bags of pearls. Our guide explained that there are 14 distinct shades to Arabian pearls, also adding that by contrast, there are only 4 shades among Japanese pearls. It took a while for me to appreciate the incredible worth laid out in front of us; Othman didn’t reveal any exact figure. But he did say that the prayer beads (pictured below), made up of pearls of increasing sizes, was one of only three in the world. All its pearls were natural. Whatever priceless actually means, this was it.
We also got to look at a book of pearl trading prices that dated back to the early 20th century. At that time, the pearl economy was booming; in 1906, it had a value of £165 million in today’s money. The trading routes stretched from Northern Europe to South-East Asia, but after the outbreak of the First World War, the the industry fell into decline.
In iftar at sunset
We visited Suwaidi Pearl Farm during the month of Ramadan, which meant that we got to experience something extra special. After the tour ended, and it grew dark, everyone working on the farm was able to break their fast. The big, communal feast immediately enjoyed after sunset during Ramadan is called an iftar. (When we drove past mosques on the mainland, we noticed large tents erected outside, where local people queued. Our taxi driver explained that they were waiting for free food, cooked and served by the mosque.)
The sun started to sink beneath the waters of the Gulf, and the food was laid out on the upper deck. As the Othman and the crew stood to pray, all facing in the same direction, the rest of us took of our shoes, and sat in the comfortable, carpeted area. The meal - spice-rubbed kingfish, scented rice and a sumac-covered salad - was followed by some of the most syrupy, eye-wateringly good dessert sweets you could imagine. It was an amazing gracenote to an experience that’s essential if you’re visiting Ras al Khaimah. MB
The Suwaidi Pearl Farm website is down at the moment, but you can contact the farm about tours through its Facebook page or ring +971 7 221 1124.