Imagine a blue pickup truck sitting on a wharf on Fishers Island, New York, loaded to the limit with 35 burlap bags filled with 2.5 cm seed oysters (appx. 90,000 oysters). Destination, the West End pond. After a ferry ride across the sound, a drive up the coast, a trip across Buzzards Bay, and a final 4 km drive to the West End pond, the life of a Cuttyhunk oyster begins. This 'planting' process begins in late April. The seed oysters are scooped into round Japanese lantern nets (500 per net) sewn up, and hung from buoys in the pond. The oysters feed off of phytoplankton which naturally grows in the pond. They remain in the nets until mid June when the nets are raised and cleaned of any sea growth (biofouling). In mid July the sieving process begins. A typical day starts with a five member team meeting at The Harbor Raw Bar at 8 am sharp. The tasks of the day are reviewed, and then the team travels energetically out to the pond by truck and hoofs it about 300 meters to where the work barge is kept. The real work starts at 8:30. The engine is fired up and the barge and crew proceed out to the line of buoys that will be serviced for that day.

Shaking and Sieving

Lantern Net (empty)

This process of shaking is done to empty the nets of the oysters that have been growing inside them. The seam is unsew n and the oysters are emptied into crates. The oysters are then washed and sent to the sieving station. The crates are emptied into a two tiered sieve, where the strongest team member shakes the system vigorously for 60 seconds. With this motion, the largest oysters are separated from the slower growing oysters, which are again washed and reloaded into clean dry nets, resewn and rehung. This gives the oysters new space to grow, clean nets to grow in, and allows us to inventory our crop. As the sieving process is going o n, the dirty nets must be picked of any stuck oysters, and any holes must be mend ed. The biofouled nets are then put on shore at the end of the shift to dry. Nets from th e previous day are flipped over so the net is able to dry off quickly for reuse at a later date. This process lasts for three to four hours; then the crew heads back for lunch and other assignments. The sieving cycle of the nets takes about three weeks.

Pumping

During the summer growing season the oysters grow at a rapid rate, but so does every other invertebrate in the pond. Many species of tunicates, sea weeds, and sponges grow all over the lantern nets. We actually create a very healthy mid water reef that supports thousands of crabs, fish and eels. All of these creatures compete for food, add weight to the nets, and limit the flow of water through them. Periodically during the season, the West End team uses a 3 inch reduced to a half inch tip high pressure pump system to remove all the excess growth from the nets. The nets are hauled up, sprayed off, inspected for growth status, logged in the company journal, repaired if necessary, and then returned to the water all in about three minutes per net. This is a lot of labor but the growth of the oyster is greatly enhanced by this process.

The West End Pond of Cuttyhunk

Harvesting

The final process to bring you our great oyster is harvesting. During the summer months the oysters are separated by size. The largest, fastest growing units have been sitting in the pond since August slurping in the delicious phytoplankton for 8 weeks and they are plump and ready for sale. A typical day of harvesting includes a team of three that hauls up, dumps, washes and hand sorted 20 nets at a time. From this effort approximately 2400 oysters are harvested; the remaining small oysters are loaded into 17 nets and put back in the pond for more growth to be re-harvested at a later date. This process goes on until mid-January.