Gold in the waters of Coromandel

There's a gold mine on Gilbert James's Coromandel Farm but it's not operational.
"I'm far more interested in the sustainable 'gold' we harvest from the sea," said the mussel industry pioneer and chairman of the Coromandel Marine Farmers Association.
He's talking about greenshell mussels which grow on the 20 ha of water space farmed by Gold Ridge Marine Farm Ltd and the additional two hectares the company leases in the waters of the Coromandel peninsula.
"My grandfather Arthur James bought the mining licence when he bought the land at Peeces Point from the mining company when it closed down. However, I've no serious intentions of ever re-opening it," said Gilbert as he watched Costa Peters and Waylon Brown seeding a new line of droppers with young mussels from a barge on the farm in the sheltered water of Rabbit Island in the Coromandel Harbour.
Growing mussels in those waters is the realisation of a dream for Gilbert which began in the 1960s, triggered by the sudden disappearance of wild mussels from the coastline.
"For years a mussel reef in the harbour was well known as a place to get mussels and there was a commercial fishery dredging them from the harbour. Then they disappeared.
"There are a number of theories as to why it happened. My father believed the dredging had destroyed their habitat," he said.
"Another theory was the tsunami caused by a Peruvian earthquake in the early 1960s. 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 below normal levels. It opened up an area between the mainland and Whanganui Island now called Little Passage and many people think it moved sediment over the mussel beds smothering the mussels which died and became putrid and the beds never recovered."
Gilbert had left his home town by the 1960s, working first as a shearer and then as production manager for Wattie's at a maize starch factory in Auckland. However, the loss of wild mussel stocks in the Coromandel represented, he believed, a business opportunity.
"I knew there was at least a 2000 bag market between Auckland and the Waikato. Mussels from the Coromandel were always in demand, particularly from rugby clubs, so while I was working for Wattie's I was also trying to get a permit to grow mussels in the Coromandel."
The family land, with direct access to the harbour at Peeces Point, was the ideal location to set up the shore-based operations such a farm would require, Gilbert decided.
Frustrated by constant red tape in gaining a marine farming licence, Gilbert was nonetheless able to track the progress of marine farmers in the Marlborough Sounds, so that when his licence was eventually granted in 1984, he could draw on their experience.
"We've learned a lot from the Marlborough farmers, but we do some things a little differently in the Coromandel," he said.
Today Gilbert is in partnership with David Blyth in another company at Wilsons Bay. A former farmer and fencer and now Gold Ridge operations manager, he shares Gilbert's passion for marine farming, and the environment, and has brought his own insights and ingenuity to add to those of Gilbert's to help grow the business.
Gilbert admits that the early days were very much about trial and error as the company built or bought equipment and put in place systems to successfully grow and harvest mussels.
That process is on-going with growing the mussels on continuous lines, instead of individual 'droppers' among the earlier innovations.
To make that possible David adapted 'walking wheels' which guide the barge along the 'backbone' of the mussel lines, lifting them and the droppers from the water for harvest or re-seeding. The tricky part was devising a system which would 'flick' the droppers off the wheels so the backbone could slide on through.
"This system is much easier on staff as they don't have to hoist in individual droppers and the barge doesn't have to keep shifting. It moves along the line automatically," said David.
Gilbert said an unexpected advantage of growing the mussels on continuous lines was that the looped nature of the growing system appeared to act almost like a sea anchor, taking some of the energy out of rough seas, so reducing strain on the buoys holding up the mussel farm.
It was another invention that gave Gold Ridge the opportunity to virtually tie up the North Island local market for mussels.
"Mike Hitchins, a South island engineer, invented the first cabinet which could spray water over mussels and keep them alive in a retail situations," said Gilbert, who supplied the mussels for the first trial of the cabinets in a Woolworths Supermarket in Auckland.
Today nearly every supermarket has fresh mussels on sale and in the North Island, they will be from the Gold Ridge farms, harvested four times a week and delivered fresh by another partner company Fresh Cuisine.
And what's the best way to eat those mussels? For David it's in chowder or fritters but for Gilbert there's nothing to surpass raw mussels from what he believes are the best growing waters in the country - those of the Coromandel Harbour.