Mussels were first grown experimentally in the mid seventies using the spanish raft method. Ropes, with mussels attached would hang underneath a wooden raft which is attached to a mooring. To the left of Flinders pier, when looking out to sea, is where that raft was located. In the mid-eighties, mussel farms in Port Phillip were suffering from continual algal bloom which can affect the health of the mussel, and ours by consumption of affected mussels. Establishing a lease at Flinders was an obvious location to overcome this issue. By the late eighties mussels were being produced from flinders on a commercially successful basis.