Southern Yorke Oysters

For brothers Paul and Damian Dee commuting to work takes on a whole new meaning. Each morning they set off from the jetty at Stansbury on Yorke Peninsula for another day at the office. Out here in Gulf Saint Vincent, you can spot Mount Lofty well into the distance and the water tower at Stansbury seems a long way off. "There's a beacon out there I think it's about 4 kilometres, in summertime you could almost walk all the way out." "It's that shallow?" "It's that shallow yer". Shallow enough for Paul to take to the water on a late winter's day to check on a dream which he and two brothers started work on three years ago. Each bag contains pacific oysters at various stages of maturity but unfortunately for Paul and Damian in this industry winter is the busiest time. "For example the other day it was 2.1 degrees therefore the cold air interacting with the shell creates a fattening process." "So the colder the better?" "The colder the better, that's exactly right." "Were you out here then?" "No I was thinking I'd like to come to do some tests." Aquaculture is one of this State's boom industry's and establishing a ground like this has surprising similarities with another boom product South Australians know and love. "Over in that next row you can see strung up some black line there and then we have to come along and install our posts and clip that line." "It's like a vineyard?" "It's very much like a vineyard. With growing your oysters fast you click the line down here and the oysters are below the wave action so that there very gentle and they're growing without too many problems. And if you want to fatten the oyster up you lift it up to the next clip and then the oyster is sitting at a very good height in the food chain and it's getting a gentle rumble from the wave action." This work has it's obvious compensations but while this pacific oyster maybe an instant taste sensation there's nothing instant about its development from tiny spat to the real thing. "So this is the spat?" "That's right." "So this is from this to that?" "That's right, approximately three years it takes." "And you were saying you would get what a million, there must be a lot smaller." "On one of these twins you could go through a million."

Plenty for all of us. If you're travelling down Yorke Peninsula keep an eye out for Southern Yorke Oysters. Their shed is diagonally opposite the Stansbury watertower on the Brentwood road leading into town. You'll usually catch on of the Dee boys sorting through the latest batch of oysters any afternoon after 1pm.

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