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![\"Cortes](\"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_0359-e1531157388859.jpg\")
<\/a>Looking across from the public wharf to the Bee Islets rafts, in Gorge Harbour \u2013 Roy L Hales photo<\/p><\/div>\n
Domestic sales<\/h2>\n
\u201cAt the beginning of October, we were ready to sell all that stuff and the market was there but of course we had red tide. Oddly, late in Area 13, it wasn\u2019t until mid November that we started selling, \u201c said\u00a0Erik Lyon<\/a>, of Rising Tide Shellfish. \u201cThen, it was great. We were ticking along, big orders doing lots of smaller product and then our processor said,\u2019I\u2019ll take it a bit easy on that stuff.\u2019 Usually leading up to Christmas, sales are really good. This is the first year on that littler stuff that instead of saying send everything you can, I can\u2019t fill the orders, he said \u2018maybe skip one week of the extra smalls.\u2019 \u2026 It hasn\u2019t been a full stop, or anything like that, it\u2019s just that this Christmas has been a little bit stranger than usual.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0BC Shellfish Growers Association<\/a>\u00a0describes Cortes Island as one of the most prolific shellfish growing areas on the West Coast.<\/p>\n Gorge Harbour is a central hub of this industry.<\/p>\n According to\u00a0Julia Rendall<\/a>, President of the\u00a0Bee Islets Growers Corporation<\/a>, \u201cThey did some testing in various areas of the coast and found that the Gorge was one of the better [areas] and Bee Islets, in particular, was very good.\u201d<\/p>\n She mentioned a study by Brian Kinset stating the Gorge was very rich in food and could support a lot of rafts.<\/p>\n \u201cBee Islets has 14 growers. The main stakeholder is really\u00a0Island Sea Farms<\/a>. They have 73 spaces, there are 150 [in total]. The rest are smaller growers: maybe 20 rafts, 15 rafts, 5 rafts,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n How many rafts do you have?<\/p>\n \u201cSeventeen. I try to have five rafts of shuck a year. So that\u2019s why COVID didn\u2019t really affect me. I never sell in the summer anyway, because there is too much testing you have to do and pay for. \u201d<\/p>\n It turns out that Julia was the only one selling to the shuck market, which means she was also the only grower selling until\u00a0China started accepting product in June<\/a>.<\/p>\n Then Erik Lyon, who sells to that market, was confronted by a greater demand than he could possibly supply.<\/p>\n The rest of the Bee Islets oyster farmers would have to wait until the domestic market reopened in November.<\/p>\n Island Sea Farms has more rafts than any of the other farmers in Bee Islets, but they grow mussels which will be treated separately except to say that they also regained access to markets around November.<\/p>\nHub of the Oyster Industry<\/h2>\n
The market comes back<\/h2>\n
![\"Cortes](\"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/5331697020_0751d8943e_c.jpg\")
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