Most Amazing Day of My Adventure, To Date - Mussel Barge!!

Today was the most amazing day of my trip so far, by far! Elli (Germany) and I spent the morning on a mussel barge, learning all about mussel harvesting, doing a little work ourselves, and catching a few fish. I literally could not be happier with the way the day is going. I am so excited I can barely even type. I can't believe how much fun I had. I was actually sad to leave at the end of the day. The crew was amazing, the weather was perfect, and the views were spectacular!

Let me get down to business now and start walking you through my day.

Giovanni, a manager at The Coromandel Mussel Kitchen and friend of Elli's, had arranged to pick me up this morning at 4:15 so I had set my alarm for 3:45. I was so excited about the trip - and so worried about oversleeping - that I woke up multiple times throughout the night and for the last time at 3:30, when finally I just got up. I had a quick breakfast, got my items together, and met Gio on the road at 4:15. We went into town, picked up Elli, and headed straight to the dock to meet the barge. We got there a few minutes early and had some time to hang out and chat with the delivery truck driver, Steve, who was dropping off seed for one of the other barges. Here's some photos of us with Steve and the mussel seed:

The barges pulled up shortly after and we loaded up ourselves and our gear on the barge we were going out on that morning. It was only about 4:45am at this point so I'm sorry the photos aren't that bright but here's a photo of the barge we went out on, taken in the morning, and a few more after it that were taken throughout the day:

Once we were all loaded on the boat we headed about an hour south down the coast to the first farm of the day. At that farm we packed roughly 175 sacks of mussels, at 25 kilos/sack. Each sack has about 400-500 mussels in it so we packed about 80,000 mussels. We were there maybe a hour and a half at that farm. Here's some photos of the equipment used in the mussel harvesting:

The mussel rope coming out of the ocean.

The mussels getting cleaned off the rope.

Ashley helping feed the rope into a bag after the mussels have been removed. The rope will be cleaned and then reused on another farm in the future.

The mussels coming out of the mussel washing machine.

Mussels going down the conveyor belt to where they are sorted and bagged.

Debi sorting the mussels and her pile of harvesting waste.

Chris bagging the mussels into 25-kilo sacks.

Mussels being sorted and bagged for shipment to Auckland supermarkets (Chris and Glenn).

After getting an initial feel for how the mussel harvesting operation worked, Elli and I got down to business fishing. Elli had never been fishing before and had a great first catch:

Pretty nice sized Snapped for her first fish, isn't it?!

I also caught a pretty good sized Snapper, but a bit smaller than Elli's. Here's a video of me reeling it in. Later I tried to kill the fish myself, by sticking a knife into it's brain, something Gio had been doing for us up until this point, but I didn't really do a great job. Here's a video of me failing at killing the fish, but kissing it afterwards :) 

Here's both of our fishes lying side by side on the deck of the boat. Mine is on the left, Elli's is on the right:

After we caught some fish Elli and I got to work helping sort the green mussels - what they sell - from the blue mussels, oysters, and other harvesting waste. Here's a video of us working. We did this at a few points throughout the day. It got much harder at the second farm we were at because they were pulling the rope up much faster and the mussels were going by in a larger quantity than your brain could ever handle. It was quite stressful, I just couldn't keep up! I think I may not be made out for mussel barge work after all...

We weren't the only ones fishing off the mussel barge, however. Other fisherman came over to our barge and fished from their boats. Some of the waste, such as broken mussels, from the harvesting ends up in the water and attracts the fish like crazy. Here's a photo of one of the guys who was hanging near the barge:

And someone else was hanging around trying to catch some lunch as well:

A shag.

Here's part of our haul from the first farm. Each of these cages holds close to 50 sacks.

Can you imagine a view like this at work every day?

After we filled up the roughly 175 25-kilo sacks at farm number 1, we moved onto a second farm about 30 minutes back in the direction of town to fill up the 1 ton bags. It's maybe 7:30 am at this point. Imagine having accomplished that much by only 7:30 am? What a day! Here's a few photos from our time at the second farm:

Chris, showing off his very manly looking fish hook.

Another barge from the same company harvesting from a different line at the same farm.

Elli and I (below) enjoying the sun on our faces.

A cute little crab we found on the barge. They come out of broken mussels.

Elli with the crab.

As I mentioned before, Elli and I did some sorting of the mussels as they came of the line. Here are some of the items we found:

The two items on the left are Oysters. The third item, on the right, is a green mussel, what we were harvesting and selling. Gio and I ate these oysters raw. Here's a video of it.

This is something that grows on the lines. Nobody knows what they are technically called but they refer to them as "dog's balls" on the barge. Maybe that name isn't that far off...?

The mussels as they were coming off the line at the second farm. They were coming very quickly and there we so many, we just couldn't keep up! (When I was standing there trying really hard to focus on the mussels and find all the unwanted items to pull from the line, it felt like the mussels were stationary and I was the thing moving. When you focus that hard, and block out everything in the background, you have no reference point and can't tell that it's really the mussels that are moving past you and not the other way around.)

After we finished with the 4 1-ton bags at the second farm, we headed to a third farm, just north of our starting point to do another 50 25-kilo sacks before our morning was over. The water was smooth as glass on our way to the third farm. Here are a few photos:

On the way we ran across a group of birds on the water. As we approached they all took off in flight. Here's a video of them.

Now for some random photos from today:

Gio and Ashley. Gio took us out on the barge and Ashley was the "manly" man that worked on the boat. With his knife and cigarette and hard hat he surely fit the part of a hard working mussel fisherman.

Elli with a 1-ton bag.

Chris watching the fish in the water swarming the boat.

Elli with a 1-ton bag.

Me and the mussel haul.

Gio fishing.

Our haul, as seen from the cabin.

Us with the crew. From left: Me, Debi, Ashley, Chris, Elli, Glenn (Skipper)

Unloading the haul from the barge.

Loading the mussels onto the truck.

Leaving the boat was really sad. Here's a video of us saying goodbye. I didn't want to leave and really felt like a hug was in order but didn't know who to ask. It was such an amazing experience, it felt like it lasted for days. I'm sitting here typing this now, at 6:00 pm, only 7 hours after getting off the boat and it already feels like ages ago. I heard once that when you are having new experiences time slows down. I believe this to be true. Today felt like it was a week or longer - so many cool things happening constantly!

At some point during the day - maybe between the second and third farm - Ashley filleted 3 of the Snapper we caught. I ate some of the fish right off the bone as he was cleaning the fish. I also ate a raw mussel and a raw oyster today (see video above). 

After we left we all headed into town and Gio and I went to a friend of his' boat to fillet a few Trevally fish we didn't get filleted on the boat. Gio cleaned one fish and let me try the other. Here's a video of me filleting a Trevally fish.

I'm totally exhausted from writing this post now. It's taken me a few hours to get all the videos and photos uploaded. I'm done for now but may go back and edit this later with more information as I'm sure I won't have anything exciting to post in the next few days that could possibly top this experience.

Hope you've enjoyed the Mussel Barge as much as I have.

Up next - oyster farm, sheep farm, kayaking to Cathedral Cove, wild pigs. These aren't all on the calendar yet, but goals of mine. Let's see if I can make them all come to fruition!

Best!

P.S. I'm going to go back and edit the post from yesterday a bit if y'all are interested in checking it out. I just have a few facts to add here and there that I don't want to forget about Kiwi.

And now, some random facts from today:

The crew, which has been together as one unit for about a year, works 4 days on and 3 days off. Their days on are about 12 hours long - starting around 5 am and ending around 5 pm.

Last year they had a large contract for mussels that required them to do 2,500 25-kilo bags of mussels each week. (Currently they are doing 800 or so 25-kilo bags a week). With the larger haul they needed to utilize all the space on the barge and thus weren't using the carts to hold the bags. They had to hand stack all the bags of mussels as they packed them and then unload them all by hand when they made it back to shore. That's equal to almost 69 tons of mussels each week. Imagine moving that all by hand 2 times at least.

This leads nicely into another fact... the crew we were with today was mostly young. I asked if this was typical or not and they said that yes, it is, because an older crew just can't handle packing, stacking and unloading 2,500 25-kilo bags/week. Now that they don't have that contract anymore it's not as pertinent that the crew is young but this barge is still working with a young group.

The barge we were on can handle up to 50 tons of mussels at once. We did 10 tons this morning, which were offloaded in the late morning, and they were going back out for another 20 tons this afternoon. (The 20 ton load in the afternoon was going to be all 1-ton bags).

Some barges in the area do 100 tons of mussels per day.

The barge we were on was fairly new and cost about $2.5 million new, equipment included.

The 25-kilo sacks packed today were headed to grocery stores in Auckland. The mussel company sells them for about $30 NZD/sack. They are then sold to consumers at about $100/sack. The consumers buy them by the kilo, not the 25-kilo sack, but the math works out to roughly that.

The waste from the harvesting is sold to a local man in town, Steve Hawkey - the burley guy, who turns it into fish burley. Fish burley is minced up mussels (and whatever else comes out of the harvesting process) and is thrown into the water by fishermen to attract fish to their boat. I have actually gotten 2 rides from Steve in the past - one to the mussel kitchen and one into town. It's so weird being in a small town, you get to see the process full circle: Steve drives me to the mussel kitchen. I meet Gio at the mussel kitchen who takes me on a barge. I see the processing waste on the barge which is sold to Steve. How strange! It'll be cool if I get another ride from him, we'll have something to talk about!

Okay, I'm sure I'll come up with more facts later that I'll let you in on.

That's really all for now.

Best!