From perilous dives to floating farms - the UAE keeps pearl heritage alive

On the calm waters of the UAE’s Ras al-Khaimah, visitors and tourists board a boat bound for a floating pearl farm where an old Emirati tradition is being kept alive.

“Today, you will go to the House of Pearl,” a tour guide tells guests as the boat glides past the city’s coastline.

At Suwaidi Pearl farm, nets holding pearl oysters hang beneath the water’s surface. Guide Muhammad Taqi al-Din explains how oysters are transferred through different growth stages over months before pearls are harvested and how pearl farming has replaced the practices of the past.

“Today we brought our guests and we explained the history,” he says, adding that visitors are shown “how, back in the days, Emiratis… used to survive on pearl diving.”

Over a century ago, fishermen dove forty metres into the Persian Gulf's turquoise waters, hunting for pearls that provided the main source of income for people across shores from what is now the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain.

That industry suffered after the Japanese invented a way to cultivate perfectly round pearls in early 1900s. Only later, did the discovery of oil help to transform sleepy fishing villages such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai into steel and glass centres of commerce.

With the advent of pearl farming, pearls were cultivated in farms by inserting ceramic balls into oysters, which the mollusks would cover with silky layers called nacre, or mother-of-pearl.

Because of their rarity, natural pearls can sell for up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, while cultured pearls are more widely available and typically range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on size, shape and lustre.

Production: Amr Alfiky/Reuters