Bert Knubben & Black Coral

Editor: Mr.Jules Montesant MSE

Black Coral, unlike the easy to tind softer coralstones and gorgonians, but together with the pink, gold and bamboo co-ral, is classified as a precious coral.
It has been like this for the past 2000 years. Whereas in ancient history and the Middle Ages. or for that matter even now in Malay, China and Japan, special supernatural forces were attributed to this black gem, our Western Civilization of today mostly treasures it as a piece of jewelry.
This 800 million dollar a year busi¬ness worldwide has its commercial acti-vities centered around the islands of Hawaii: thousands of black coral divers, po-lishers. buffers, craftsmen, and jewelers make a living from antipathea, the scien-tific name for this coral of the class of Anthozoans.

Cozumel, on the east coast of Mexico, Cayman Islands and the Caribbean are next in line, aithough on a much lesser scale, for the production of this precious black stone.
Very expensive in Europe in the 1600's, it was used to ward off evil in-fluences, to cure teeth, to gain and retain power, and to protect the bearer against the very venomous and deadly sting of the Scorpion, which brings us on the subject of Bert Knubben, age 44, Scorpion, from Curacao. who has heen diving for black coral for 30 years already. in the Caribbean waters around Curacao.
Knowing that the average lifetime a black coral diver in the Pacific Ocean can count on is 10 years of continuous diving, Bert Knubben might well appear so-me day in the Guiness Book of records.
Knowing Bert as we do. this would not surprise us at all.

Skilled, responsible and adventurous at the same time, dedicated artist, sea lover, bohemian, warm hearted, and sincere, Knubben, the «Macamba Pretu» as some friends call him, just loves nis profession.
This professional diver —with various instructor's licenses—, emerges from the depths, more than 100 feet. with his daily load of brownish twigs and branches of antipathes. to convert himself, once in his workshop into the patiënt craftsman and sculptor from who-se hands, gracious and beautiful figures leap into existence.

According to Bert, Curacao's cristal-line waters, the geological formation of its coral reefs and the always present slight undercurrent. provide ideal cir-cumstances for a faster than usual growth of the coral.
Actually they are not plants at all, but huge colonies of polyps that leave their calcareous skeletons behind.

This knowledge. combined with his love for nature, brought about the idea, why it would not be possible to cultiva-te, seed and harvest black koral and fi-nally after more than 6 years of legal lobbying and government obstructions. Bert was granted this year the official license exempting him from the prohibition of cutting black coral; this scientific experiment of cultivating antipathes under the guidance of the Caribbean Marine Biology Institute in Curacao should prove to the world that this type of marineculture is technically feasible and that it might be commercially atractive too.

Looking at the vast assortment of pre-cious black coral, set in gold and silver frames, as pendants, earrings, chains, and much more, down in the basement be-low the swimming pool of the Princess Beach Hotel, where he has his permanent exhibition and workshop, we ask Bert Knubben which are his personal favourites, and he proudly displays some pictures of oriental face masks. carved in black-reddish coral. that have earned him international reputation.

As you  can see on the picture Mr. Bert Knubben standing in front of his workshop, accompanied by his ever present Dominican parrot, and some specimen of his delicate, lustrous and beautiful art.

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