Dampier Peninsula: shells, sunsets and a remarkable pearl

Andy
The patterned shell of a nautilus.

The Dampier Peninsula gave us a collection of beautiful small things and very big horizons: a patterned nautilus shell, a beach camp, evening light at Middle Lagoon and an extraordinary pearl at Cygnet Bay.

The patterned shell of a nautilus.
The patterned shell of a nautilus.
Evening light at Middle Lagoon.
Evening light at Middle Lagoon.
A beach stop at Rainbow Beach, Lombadina.
A beach stop at Rainbow Beach, Lombadina.
The opened pearl oyster.
The opened pearl oyster.

On the cultured pearl tour, an oyster was opened to reveal a pearl that the guide described as the best they had found during a tour. Seeing it still inside the shell, then resting in a hand, made the scale and lustre much easier to appreciate than a finished piece of jewellery could.

The pearl still inside the oyster.
The pearl still inside the oyster.
The pearl resting in a hand.
The pearl resting in a hand.
A banded red sunset through smoke haze.
A banded red sunset through smoke haze.

The pearl was the work of a living oyster, with years of cultivation behind the moment we happened to see. I don't think anyone on the tour appreciated the rareness of finding a pearl of such quality like this. It was only after we got back to the store and saw the excitement of the people who work there we realised.

There was plenty of open coast between those close-up details. Rainbow Beach at Lombadina was a lovely place to stop, and a smoky sunset later turned the sun into a banded red disc. It looked rather like a hot Jupiter dropping into the sea.