WHAT IT’S REALLY LIKE TO BE...

An oyster farmer, Sapphire Coast, NSW

I thought the bank was going to own me. All I knew about oysters was that you don’t have to feed them and they’re not going to run through a hole in the fence and ruin the neighbour’s canola crop when you’re having a few Friday night beers.

When I moved here, I got a job with an oyster farmer straightaway. He taught me everything there is to know: the seasonal nature, the timings. You need an aquaculture permit; a coxswain certificate and food-safety qualifications, too.

Living on and from the water is a great life. I probably wouldn’t swap vocations with anyone, but we definitely work for every cent in the heat and cold, wet and dry. It’s less physical than on the land – you’re not wrestling a 130-kilogram ram to stick a drench down its throat – but more repetitive.

They are hardy; chuck them around and they just go, “Yeah, I don’t care, whatever.” They can be out of the water for a couple of days and it doesn’t matter. We don’t harvest Pacific oysters [an introduced species endemic to Japan].

Some catch onto our ‘imitation rock’, flexible plastic slats (200–300 per slat). When they’re thumbnail size, I’ll strip each slat [and put in bags, as below]. Once 70 per cent of them are what I call ‘grow out’ size (one year), they get a little trip up the highway to Merimbula Lake. It’s a good finish-off lake because the oysters are exposed at low tides. In ambient temperatures, they tend to think they’re a bit cold and thicken their shells.

[45 kilometres south of Pambula]: if stuff settles on oysters, you have to manually chip it off. If you have to chip off thousands of oysters, chipping is all you’ll be doing. The bags keep the oysters contained and keep them clean; stop fowling from mussels, barnacles and God knows what else. I have 10,000 of the bags, each manually flipped every month to six weeks.

we group them in similar sizes, so you don’t have big oysters competing with

little oysters. Otherwise the big ones get the lion’s share. I know the female ones because they smell better. Only joking, they’re bigger.

Which is really hard, physical work. On and on it goes until you wish you were dead. If I showed you an oyster stick and you went “uuurrgh”, I would know you’re an oyster farmer. We strip them off the plastic slats young now, so we don’t have to do much chip, chip, chipping.

Oysters feed by pumping water through their gills, extracting algae, and transporting it down into their mouths. So, Sydney rock oysters have two kinds of faeces: the stuff they spit out and the stuff they digest. After about three years, they’ll be a plate, bistro or cocktail oyster.

No pesticides, fungicides or fertilisers. We could call our oysters organic – if everyone in the catchment was playing the same game. The catchment’s water quality is great because we don’t have any big industry here.

Oysters cost about 20 bucks a dozen in the city. From Broadwater Oysters, Pambula, they are about $15 – opened. The money goes direct to the farmer, so he can jaunt around the countryside and drink alcohol.

Just with black pepper, a squeeze of lemon, a couple of drops of lime. Native finger limes are fantastic. The flavour intensity can be associated with how long they’ve been out of the water, too, almost too iodine-y after a while.

The characteristics of each catchment influences the taste – the water geochemistry, the sediment base, the balance of ocean to fresh water.

Oysters from my Merimbula lease are saltier than in Pambula, which is flushed out by two rivers.

Hold it however you can to keep control. Allow for follow-through! Place the tip through the hinge (about 10 millimetres), wriggle and push simultaneously. Pop the lid up, follow the right-hand side about halfway up to cut the adductor muscle. A competition shucker can do 14 a minute – it’s a bloody affair – only joking!

If it warms up, the reality is that oysters will probably grow quicker. But ocean acidification could be a problem. A slight change in ocean pH could potentially deform or destroy shells.

Now, if you have a go, you can make decent money because of demand. If I could grow a million rock oysters, I could sell them all. Prices are rising stably, and people are investing in their businesses, but there are limited leases.