Seaplanes, Pilots and the Golden South Seas Pearls.
Gold, silver, diamonds, precious stones, and pearls have been at the top of man’s list of the most sought-after and cherished valuables since man learned to forge these raw elements into jewellery. Pearls, however, have been the moonlight glint in man’s eyes since the beginning.
“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” Matthew 13:45-46.
Massive stars form gold, silver, diamonds, and stones, with extreme heat and pressure during exploding supernovae or, sometimes, neutron star collisions. The debris from these events disperses throughout the galaxy, eventually coalescing into planetary systems like ours. Over billions of years, the Earth’s geological processes concentrated these elements into accessible ore deposits through volcanic activity, plate tectonics, and mineral crystallization.
This process is anything but gentle. It takes high-energy astrophysical events, immense pressure, and heat during violent fluctuations deep within our earth’s inhospitable mantle to forge our wedding rings, ruby-encrusted crowns, and silver spoons.
Pearls, in contrast, are born of an organic and serene process. In Greek mythology, pearls are associated with Aphrodite rising naked and fully formed from the sea dripping wet.
“Born from the foam of the sea was Aphrodite, daughter of Uranus (the Sky). The unsurpassed beauty of Aphrodite transcends the ancient art that records in a vivid and glorious manner her sensual figure.”
Pearls form naturally and gently by oysters, a family member of mollusks, protecting themselves from an accidentally embedded irritant, such as a grain of sand, that they can’t naturally expel. Oysters weep an organic/inorganic mix known as nacre or mother-of-pearl that builds in layers around the irritant to give a smooth, shining, iridescent and often round pearl that can be white, pink, champagne, black or gold depending on the oyster species and what the oyster ingests.
Nature’s perfect child is smooth and luxurious to the touch. Unlike the high-energy violence that gives rise to gold and silver, pearl formation reflects a biological system’s capacity for adaptative self-preservation through evolution.
The big difference between gold and pearls is that clever people can cultivate pearls. No alchemist has discovered the magic of how to turn lead into gold, but a few men have mastered the art of pearl alchemy—none, as well as Jacques Branellec, the founder and owner of Jewelmer. Jacques, a sailor, scuba diver, motorcyclist, and airline pilot, became the Michelangelo of crafting pearls.
Kokichi Mikimoto of Japan cultured the first spherical pearls in 1905 and has since produced silky smooth white pearls with a silvery sheen. Mallorca, Indonesia, and Australia also produce lustrous salt-water cultured pearls.
As late as 1990, cultured pearls were white or creamy white. Exotic rare black pearls from Tahiti’s “black-lipped” oysters were not cultured, and divers destroyed 10,000 oysters and large swathes of the seabed for each black pearl harvested. As an airline pilot flying and living in Tahiti, Jacques was troubled by the unsustainable methods the pearl divers used to harvest pearls. He was determined to find a better way, and after many years of sacrifice and hard work, he did. Jacques developed a sustainable means of culturing black pearls that saved the Tahiti industry from self-imploding. Jacques started the world’s first commercial black pearl farm, “which, up to date, is the leading number one producer of black pearls in the world.”
Unfortunately, fate had another plan for Jacques. After being swindled by his financial partner, he left Tahiti to wander the world, looking for a new home for his pearl-culturing endeavour. In 1976, he bought a sailing yacht in France and headed west with his wife and newborn baby. They settled in the Philippines 18,000 miles and years later, where Jacques found his pearl heaven.
Good pearls need a clean, pristine environment. Pollutants and sediment are reflected in the pearl’s development. Jacques found a perfect location far from civilization, at the southern tip of Palawan Island, near the Malaysian islands of Sabah. Jacques called the island “Breathtaking Bugsuk.” Despite his experience gained in Tahiti, Jacques faced a steep learning curve and made many costly mistakes along the way. Luck and a good eye for potential helped him make the discovery of a lifetime.
Jacques noticed a naturally recessive gene in some of the locally sourced Pinctada maxima oysters that produced a golden pearl, depending on the environmental conditions. He set about to change the industry using the vision of a poet and the skill of a craftsman to finally, after an extensive breeding program, produce golden pearls from the gold-lipped pearl oyster native to Philippine waters. Jacques elevated the act of culturing pearls into the art of nurturing pearls.
Environmental conditions must be perfect to produce the Golden South Seas Pearl. There must be no pollution, no cyanide fishing, no fishing with dynamite, and no destruction of the coral reefs for short-term gains. The workers at the Jewelmer Pearl farms strive to protect and maintain the pristine environmental conditions they found when they started farming in the 1980s.
The pearl is an indicator of the health of the planet. Upon its lustrous surface, every typhoon, every change in water temperature, every current caused by a dynamite blast, and every nuance in the cleanliness of the water is recorded. It falls on the highly skilled pearl farmer to act as a steward of creation. That’s why sharing with clients and helping them understand pearls and their relationship with nature is important. Jacques Branellec.
Source: The Jewelmer Pearl Farm | Philippine Golden South Sea Pearls
Part poet, part craftsman Jacques and his Filipino financial partner turned his nurtured golden pearls of natural beauty into a work of exquisitely crafted jewelry. They created a luxury brand to sell exquisite creations and control their branding.
That is where the seaplane initially came into the picture. Although Jewelmer uses a helicopter for personal and work transportation, Jacques wanted something different to help market its ecologically friendly jewelry. Something that would fit in with its mutually inclusive luxury branding and quest for ecological sustainability. The seaplane fits that description perfectly.
The modern turbine-powered seaplane requires no runways or helipads and leaves no footprint behind. Pearl oysters are sensitive to noise and pollution, and the seaplane is benign in both categories. Unlike boat motors that have their propellers underwater, the little noise the seaplane propeller makes on takeoff is not transferred from the medium of air to the medium of water. Because there is no propeller or exhaust underwater, again, unlike boats, there is no residual pollution.
Jewelmer deputy CEO Jacques Christophe Branellec, son of the founder, arranged for me to fly a photography team and a jewelry model out to their private island just a few miles from one of their leading pearl farms. Although Flower Island Resort is mainly a private family residence while they are working the pearl farms, they also take in the occasional guests – those intrepid travellers who have the time and determination to find their way via commuter airliner to Puerto Princesa, a 3.5-hour Jeepney journey to the port of Taytay and finally a long boat ride across to the island.
By seaplane, on the other hand, I departed Manila at 6:30 am and arrived at the island by 8:00 am, just in time for breakfast.
My assignment was simple: Fly the model and film crew to the island and then wait.
The golden pearls were the show’s real star, and the seaplane was merely a backdrop for the pearly campaign photo shoot. At any one time, the young lady was wearing up to $50,000 worth of golden South Seas pearls.
These exquisite and valuable pearls were created by human intervention, a product of the harmony between man and nature. Commercialism can coexist with nature as long as poets and craftsmen create within the laws of nature without sacrificing the community’s needs.
We can protect and tune, but ultimately, we must sustain the natural processes of the environment and the human community that lives in and on it. If the community can profit from protecting the environment, harmony and balance are restored—not by politicians but by craftsmen and poets.
To extend the metaphor, seaplane pilots are formed within the same environment as an oyster. Some of us are born pilots, but we must learn to be seaplane pilots. Study, training, and practice smooth out our sharp edges until we fit in. Like pearl-bearing oysters, our seaplane world needs an environment of clean waters, a healthy biosphere, and perfect beaches to thrive. Otherwise, we would just as well work for an airline and fly from concrete to concrete. That is not who we are.
Instead of pounding Dash-8s down onto paved runways, often compared to trying to land a shopping cart down a grocery aisle, we live for flying to remote tropical islands and alighting upon clear blue waters teeming with whale sharks, turtles, clown fish, sea anemones and pearl-bearing oysters. While all pilots are skilled craftsmen, some pilots become the poets of aviation. Seaplane pilots write our stanzas on the sparkling waters of the blue lagoon.
Jacques Branellec, the Jewelmer workers, and the entire pearl farming community are invested in protecting their pristine environment. As a reward, the environment becomes their livelihood. In 1996, the Filipino President, Fidel Ramos, proclaimed the Golden South Seas Pearl the National Gem in recognition of Jacques’ achievements.
You don’t need to be a jewelry model to make the golden pearls look luxurious. A marketing manager, Marie was also wearing trademark Jewelmer golden pearl earrings. I dubbed her “The Girl with the Golden Earrings.” Filipinos are like pearls that absorb the light and reflect the Orient.
This young lady and all those who work the pearl farms with Jewelmer represent the real national treasure of the Philippines and our future. Jacques calls this the “pearl philosophy.” You cannot produce perfect pearls unless the people who work with you have the courage to believe that what they do makes a difference.
Jacques Branellec summed it up in an interview. “The pearl is the symbol of survival – when you have no more pearls, you have no more humans on the planet.”
In turn, the community of workers cannot protect their environment without the courage of business leaders who can invest in the connectivity that pearl farms and seaplane airlines can bring to a community. Seaplanes connect communities, provide opportunities, and sustain commerce without damaging the very environment the community depends on.
The proof is in the pearl.
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