Industry Interview with Ocean Diamonds Creative Director, Elly Buck.

Marine Diamonds’ Fascinating Journey from Seabed to Surface.

Ocean Diamonds in a leading specialist in marine diamonds, bringing nature's most precious gifts from seabed to surface and celebrating the power of the ocean in every stone. Responsibly sourced, each diamond comes with a certificate of provenance so you can be assured of the origin. Seekd Founder, Fay Cannings, spoke to Elly Buck, Creative Director of Ocean Diamonds, about the company’s incredible story, the unique process of diamond diving, sustainable sourcing and their bright future, specially for this year's World Oceans Day.

Ocean Diamonds have a fascinating story and are so precious, tell us why they are so special?

Ocean Diamonds have a truly remarkable story. They are natural diamonds that have travelled from land to sea over millions of years. Through the process of erosion and weathering they are released from their primary source and transported along rivers to the ocean. They are carried northwards along the coastline, away from the river mouth, by currents and waves and eventually find a resting place on the seabed where they are then recovered by our diamond divers.

The alluvial regime affecting diamonds while they travel down the rivers to the sea is relatively gentle. Diamonds get rolled around between boulders, particularly when rivers are in flood. But it is nothing compared with the battering they are subjected to once they meet the sea. Storms create huge waves breaking along the coast and the consequent violence from this high energy dissipation throws the sand, gravel and boulders around and our diamonds contained therein. Only the best and strongest survive this attrition.

This uniquely distinguishes ocean diamonds from normal alluvial diamonds. It also means they have a smaller mean size due to greater fragmentation.

They’re precious because of their beautiful ocean provenance, each one is imbued with the romance of the ocean and carries such a special connection to the sea for the wearer.

How are Ocean Diamonds more sustainable?

Ocean Diamonds are discovered by professional divers off the West Coast of South Africa; this is both a responsible and sustainable method of recovery. Diamond diving is a small scale operation, the divers work from a boat the size of a small fishing vessel. Their work is very reliant on nature, they must wait for calm weather so that the sea is calm, these ideal conditions only occur a few days a month.

The divers work in localised areas of the sea where they know that there are diamonds occurring. A small hose is used to transport the diamond bearing gravel on board the boat. They do not excavate or trawl the seabed in any way. Once the gravel is on board the boat it is filtered and anything too small or large is immediately returned to the sea, the rest is taken back to the harbour to be sorted.

We employ local people as divers and diamond sorters. Our cutting and polishing is carried out in South Africa to keep all the processes in the country of origin.

Do they sparkle more than normal diamonds and why?

Ocean Diamonds are often complimented for their beautiful sparkle. This may be due to the nature of their journey; only the highest quality diamonds reach a resting place on the seabed as any diamonds with inclusions and weaknesses will be crushed and fractured along the way. The ocean waves tumble and polish the raw diamonds which may contribute to their natural sparkle as well.

What made you want to start Ocean Diamonds, your company? Are there any other companies like you? Tell us a bit about your own personal story.

Ocean Diamonds are the first and only brand to differentiate ocean diamonds from land diamonds. The brand was launched by our founder, Robert Goodden in 2020 although the idea begun many years before. The seed was sown when Robert was working in South Africa on a marine project and saw the divers coming back from working at sea. He was captivated by their activity and by a large octahedral diamond that they had discovered that day. From that moment he felt like it was an incredible story that needed to be shared.

How do you work with the industry and jewellers?

We sell Ocean Diamonds directly to jewellery designers, some work them into bespoke pieces and others create collections around the diamonds. The first step is to sign up to our trade area on the website.

What’s the future for Ocean Diamonds?

We are working on lots of things in the background, we hope to become fully RJC Certified soon, we are a member at the moment.

We have established a concise supply chain and we are now working on ways in which we can demonstrate the traceability in a tangible way that we can share with our customers. We also want to be able to provide even more provenance details for each diamond purchased. Our goal is to be able to say exactly which boat it came off and the name of the diver who sourced your diamond!

We’re looking forward to nurturing the relationships we are building with jewellery designers and welcoming new jewellers, and we’re excited to keep sharing the story of Ocean Diamonds with everyone!

Who do you admire in the industry working with Ocean Diamonds? And favourite designs?

We work with so many talented jewellery designers and admire them all! Each jeweller creates such exquisite pieces which are all very high quality and it’s so exciting to see the variety of de signs that are created to house an Ocean Diamond, each one is always so unique and special.