From the team at Arapawa Blue Pearls, pearl farmers, conservationists, and lifelong students of the sea. We share these stories from Arapaoa Island, where pāua has been at the heart of everything we do for nearly two decades.
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From the Crown to the Coast
A particular kind of quiet settles over Whekenui Bay when a boat rounds the last corner of the channel, especially on a still spring day. A warm breeze from the west carries air across the Tasman Sea to Aotearoa, giving us a welcome reprieve of Outback heat and warming the soil, bringing about the sun above to welcome all visitors.
This time, we have a special guest who’d been out here over the weekend.
We are welcoming Miss Universe New Zealand 2026, Georgia Waddington, to Arapaoa Island, our Pāua pearl farm, and the Beach House so close to the water you can fall asleep to its sound. She has come to see, with her own hands and eyes, where the jewellery that has supported her journey began.Thankfully able to stay a night on the island, before we take her back to the mainland so she can keep moving toward November, and toward the 75th Miss Universe in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
A partnership that started long before the crown
When Miss Universe New Zealand first reached out, we were asked to do something we’d never had the opportunity to do, but we took it head-on: putting our pearls on women who would carry New Zealand into a room that the whole world could be watching.
Every contestant on the 2026 national stage wore a custom Arapawa piece. A pendant designed around one of our signature Pāua pearls, set in locally sourced gold or silver, made here in Aotearoa. No two pearls are ever the same. They never are. Blue is the dominant colour, but each one holds its own quiet mix of green, pink, violet, and the iridescent colours that only Haliotis Iris can produce.
When Georgia was crowned at SkyCity Theatre in Auckland on 28 July, she received an exclusive necklace and matching earrings selected for that night.
Pearls chosen for colour, lustre, and the way they brilliantly hold and reflect light.They began as part of a living Pāua, grown in the cold seawater that flows from the Cook Strait and along the Tory Channel, on this island, years before anyone knew her name would be called. Over the years, it picked up particles of calcium and carbonate ions from the waters around it, formed from the ocean absorbing carbon dioxide. In doing so, it locked away gases in the atmosphere, recycling them into a form that keeps them out of the greenhouse gas emissions cycle for millions of years.
That is the part we have always wanted her to see, part of our projects of making sustainable but beautiful jewellery that will last for generations.
Coming home to the jewellery
Georgia grew up in Christchurch, in a family of seven (with two sisters and two brothers). She built Social Strategy NZ, walked into pageantry as a first-timer in 2023 and left with a national title, then carried New Zealand to Miss International and Miss Charm.
All before winning Miss Universe New Zealand on her first attempt! She speaks, often and without varnish, about confidence, bullying, and the work of becoming someone you can stand behind. A gem of a person to be around, lighting up the room and making you feel included in every conversation. Georgia was a pleasure to show around while on the tour.
She was able to stand in the hatchery where the next generation of Pāua is raise, watch how a pearl leaves the shell in the processing room, and hold the same animal that, four or five years earlier, began laying down the nacre she now wears. It was an educational and fascinating experience that she shared with her dad Rob. Coming to realise that, from the water, the farm does not look like a factory. It looks like a homestay at the edge of the Sounds, that happens to grow one of the rarest gems on earth.
Seeing how a blue pearl is made
Most people know Pāua as the shell in a gift shop. Few people know the same animal can grow a pearl.
On the luxury farm tour, Georgia walked the full path from sea to setting:
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* The land-based tanks, fed by clean ocean water, where adult Pāua live under a tipper-bucket swell that mimics the wave they were built for. - * The hatchery, and the tiniest Pāua, some hatched only weeks ago and only just a bit bigger than a crumb. Many of whom we'll return to the wild through our reseeding programme.
- * The processing room, where we cut a pearl from the shell, making sure it meets our quality standards before we turn it into a finished product for jewellers to use.
- * The boutique and the workbench, where Antonia grades it across seven attributes: size, shape, colour, lustre, surface, nacre, and matching. Afterwards, choose a pearl for a piece with careful consideration and an eye for detail.
A Pāua pearl is a mabe, formed against the inner surface of the shell. The colour is the same nacre that makes New Zealand Pāua famous. There is no dye. There is no treatment. Only time: years of quiet layering in cold water, on an island you cannot reach by road.
We have always said that happy pāua make the best pearls. Showing someone that sentence in a tank is different from printing it on a card.
A night at the Beach House
After the farm, Georgia stayed overnight at the Beach House Retreat Little Colonsay, the 1952 beachfront bach built for David Cormack, the Perano whaling-station engineer whose oil tanks still stand on the island.
It is the closest of our three houses to the water, with all-day sun, a private beach, and bi-fold doors that open the lounge onto the deck. No shops, no traffic, and no Wi-Fi to speak of only Spark/OneNZ cell towers, and the sound of the Strait when the weather turns.
We did what we do for every guest we are glad to have: tea, coffee, and something baked. A walk on the sand if the tide is kind, enjoying the long golden hour in the early evening when the Sounds go quiet, and you remember why people built houses out here in the first place. But we made a special exception by having Georgia and her team over for dinner at our home, with kaimoana and homegrown garden veggies.
Pageant calendars are loud, but the island nights are not. That contrast is part of the gift.
Then back to the road and on to Miss Universe
In the morning we took her back across the water so she can continue her travels, but not before finishing things with a flight up and above the island with a rare opportunity provided by Nelson Helicopters. The day couldn’t have been better to see the scenery in a bird’s eye view as well as the ferries going past, and the sun reflecting off the seas.
The 75th Miss Universe, it’s diamond anniversary, will be held on 24 November 2026 at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in San Juan, Puerto Rico. And Georgia will stand there as New Zealand’s representative.
We cannot walk onto that stage with her, but the pearls can.
That is the point of bringing her here first. So that when the lights come up in San Juan, the jewellery at her throat is not only beautiful. It is a place she has stood in and took in the energy of. A family she has had dinner with. A stretch of New Zealand coastline that does not appear on most maps, and certainly does not need to.
What we hope she takes with her
Georgia has said, more than once, that modern pageants are not only about being pretty. Rather the work is purpose, community, and the person you become while nobody is clapping. We recognise that language. Growing a pearl is the same idea, stretched over years instead of a season.
If she leaves the island with one thing besides salt in her hair, we hope it is this: the piece she wears was not manufactured to look like the ocean. It was grown in it, by an animal endemic to these waters, on a family farm that also returns baby Pāua to the wild. And you’ll find it nowhere else on earth.
That is a New Zealand story worth taking to Puerto Rico.
Come and see it yourself
You do not need a crown to stand where Georgia will stand.
The luxury Pāua pearl farm tour runs from the island and can be paired with a night (or several) at the Beach House, the Gunyah, or the School House. Arrive by water taxi, the Picton mail boat on Tuesdays and Fridays, or helicopter. Stay long enough for the tide to change twice. Leave with a pearl if one finds you.
We currently have a rather affordable rate for couples at $250 a night for two adults for the Beach House or Gunyah!
Plan a visit or browse the jewellery at arapawabluepearls.co.nz. If you would like a piece chosen with you, book a consultation with Antonia. She still lays the pearls out on a cloth, in the light, until one of them says yes to you.
Nearly 20 years of continuous reseeding into the wild reefs of Arapawa Island
Thousands of juvenile pāua released each year into surrounding coastal waters
Land-based farming — all pāua cultivated onshore, leaving the ocean floor undisturbed
Wild populations around Arapawa are at their healthiest recorded state in over 25 years
A closed loop — the same pāua we farm help restore the wild system they came from
The land-based farming model used at Arapawa means pāua are cultivated entirely onshore, in carefully managed tanks, without disrupting the ocean floor beneath them. It is a model that asks how human enterprise can support a wild system rather than extract from it.
The Author: Jacob Radon
Jacob grew up on Arapaoa Island, surrounded by the lifestyle and aquaculture of his parents. From an early age, the rhythms of the island shaped the way he sees the world — the tides, the water, the quiet patience that good farming demands. He loves pāua and has a deep interest in understanding their biology, behaviour, and how best to optimise their growth. That curiosity, rooted in a childhood spent close to the ocean, is what makes Jacob such a natural and passionate part of the Arapawa Blue Pearls team.
Go Behind the Scenes at Arapawa Blue Pearls
Frequently Asked Questions
Is pāua the same as abalone?
Yes. Pāua belongs to the same genus (Haliotis) as abalone species found around the world. What makes New Zealand's pāua distinct is the intensity of its shell colour — widely regarded as the most vivid of any abalone species on earth.
Does pāua make pearls?
Yes, though very few people know this. Pāua produces mabe pearls, formed against the inner surface of the shell. The same nacre that gives the pāua shell its breathtaking colour creates the pearl. Arapawa Blue Pearls is the sole producer of pāua pearls in New Zealand and the world.
How long does a pāua pearl take to form?
Around eight years in total. Pāua take four years to reach the maturity needed for pearl cultivation, and a further four years for the nacre layers to build into a gem of quality. It is one of the slowest and most patient processes in fine jewellery.
Is pāua endangered or protected?
Wild pāua are managed under New Zealand's Quota Management System, with strict size limits and recreational harvest rules in place. Poaching remains a serious threat. At Arapawa Blue Pearls, our reseeding programme has been returning juvenile pāua to wild reefs for nearly twenty years, supporting populations to their healthiest recorded state in over 25 years.
What is the difference between pāua shell jewellery and pāua pearl jewellery?
Pāua shell jewellery uses the iridescent shell itself, polished and set. Pāua pearl jewellery features a cultured gem grown inside a living pāua over four years, a far rarer and more time-intensive creation. Both are beautiful; only one is a pearl.
