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Fly Ted Down Under Journeys through the land of Oz

Broome & Cable Beach

The pearl diver, indigenous apology plaque, and Carnarvon Street in Chinatown, Broome.

AUSTRALIA | Sunday, 5 June 2011 | Views [413]

The pearl diver, indigenous apology plaque, and Carnarvon Street in Chinatown, Broome.

The statue of a pearl diver in a turn-of-the-century diving suit, one of the classic images of Broome. In the early 1900's, by far most of the divers were Japanese, but the federal government in Melbourne was desperate to enforce its “White Australia” policy, and considered the reliance on Japanese labour by white merchants in Broome to be an embarrassment. And so, 12 white British Navy divers were recruited from Britain to try their hand at diving and pearl harvesting and prove that white divers could be as good if not better than the Japanese. Within a year, 4 of the divers had died from paralysis or the bends, and the remainder were so woefully inefficient that they quietly crept out of town. Pearl diving remained a brutally harsh occupation in which only the Japanese were willing to accept the risks and losses.

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Town Beach, on Roebuck Bay, the closest swimming hole to the town. Broome itself sits on a peninsula that points south, separating large Roebuck Bay from the open Indian Ocean. Cable Beach is on the west side of the peninsula, a good 7 km from Chinatown and the centre of Broome. Thus it is quite a trek to get from one place to the other, especially by foot, which would be a little hot in the middle of the day. The Town Beach is far more accessible for locals, being just down the street from Chinatown.

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