Broome Pearl Luggers: Where can I learn about the Australian pearl industry?

The Broome Pearl Luggers are two museum boats explaining the history and terrifying working conditions of the Australian pearl industry.

The Western Australia resort town of Broome is the centre of the Australian pearl industry. A highly distinctive place ridiculously far from any decent-sized city, Broome is almost entirely constructed from corrugated metal. That’s partly because it’s easier to replace if a cyclone rips through. But it’s mainly because it’s a lot cheaper than bricks to transport more than 2,000km from Perth.

Theses days, growing pearls is the big money-spinner in Broome, WA, – but this small, remote town was built on buttons.

Until plastics came in during the 1950s and utterly savaged the pearl shell market, most suit and shirt buttons were made of pearl shell. And it was so valuable that people would face all manner of danger to get at it.

Broome Pearl Luggers tour

The two Pearl Luggers – the DMcD and Sam Male – in central Broome are the last two old-style boats from a once proud fleet numbering over 400. They’re now museum pieces, and the grim tales of life aboard them are told in the neighbouring tenders store.

Here, walls are covered in photographs, and clunky-looking equipment stacks up around the sides. Most eye-catching, though, are the suits. Made of vulcanised rubber, they would regularly dwarf the slightly-built Asian divers. The divers would also have to contend with two layers of woollen clothing underneath and enormous lead-lined boots.

It would take an hour to get into it all, and that’s with assistance from two other crew members. Once fully togged up, and with the airtight helmet screwed in place, they would weigh 200-220kg. Too heavy, in other words, for the divers to swim back under their own steam.

Pearl diving history in Broome, WA

A visit to the Broome Pearl Luggers shows that the divers were terrifyingly reliant on the attendants at the other end of their rope. They had to communicate via a Morse code-esque system of tugs on the rope. The bulk of the daylight hours were spent underwater underwater, grabbing oyster shells from the ocean bed.

There wasn’t an unlimited air supply – divers had to pull on the rope to get more air pumped down through the air hose. It required enormous levels of trust, and it wouldn’t be uncommon for the deckhands to be slacking off, having a sandwich or just chatting. Often they’d not pump the air until the very last second. And occasionally, festering resentments could lead to the deckhands not pumping any down at all. A death could always be written off as a tragic accident.

There were an awful lot of deaths by other means too. Shark attacks, highly venomous sea snake bites and jellyfish stings and migrating humpback whales blundering through and cutting off the air pipe were bad. Cyclones were worse. But decompression sickness (also known as the bends) through ascending too rapidly was remorseless.

Cost of Broome Pearl Luggers tour

A one hour tour of the Broome Pearl Luggers costs $30. The Pearl Luggers are now owned by Willie Creek Pearls, and another top Broome activity is visiting the Willie Creek Pearl Farm. Other unusual things to do in Broome include hovercraft tours, seeing sunset at Reddell Beach, riding a camel down Cable Beach and drinking mango beer at the Matsos Brewery.

Flights to Broome Airport are available daily from Perth, although there are also seasonal flights to Broome from Sydney and Melbourne.