SEA JEWELS
In addition to its brooding beauty, the Marlborough Sounds is renowned for its mussel and salmon farms. Less well-known is that it’s also home to a small but exclusive paua-farming industry.
Among the players is Arapawa Seafarms – breeding the animals not so much for their meat but for their shells and pearls. It also cultivates the paua for commercial reseeding – and it played a vital role restocking the devastated coastline after the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake.
As the name suggests, the farm’s located on Arapawa – the Sounds’ easternmost island – it lies alongside the route sailed by the Cook Strait ferries. The farm’s owned by Mike and Antonia Radon who launched their enterprise some 20 years ago
