The Dark Side of the Moon

In enviable weather, on the south-east coast of Australia, a stainless steel punt glides over Merimbula Lake towards an oyster lease, with passionate young oyster farmer Dom at the helm. It's a romantic picture of tranquil beauty and a life close to nature, attuned to the rhythm of the tides. But Dom whose been on the lake all of his life, the son of an oyster farmer, swears the water is getting warmer, storms more severe, and diseases is becoming more of a worry. Indeed, the oyster has been called the canary in the estuary, for the death of an oyster can reveal environmental changes or pollution that might have gone unnoticed. Dom is the lake warden - he monitors the water and oysters for disease. His degree in Aquaculture hasn't prepared him for the shock when the samples he's collected are dead. His parents reassure him that they and the oysters have weathered droughts, floods and tough times, but conditions are changing, and there's tension in paradise over what's happening in the lake. With disease making people sick and the blame being put on the oyster farmers. It is Dom's job to close the lake in the height of the oyster season. The Sydney Rock Oyster, is slow growing and vulnerable to pollution, changes in temperature and increasing diseases. In the oyster's three year life, it has to be hauled out of the lake thirty-six times, put through the industrial grader, double checked by hand and then back out into the lake until it's grown to a size that looks good on a plate. Dom and Pip know the care, frustration, sense of humour and hard physical work that it takes and they've got two lovable energetic young sons to bring up as well. Closing the lake is hard on everyone.