Are the oysters even worth doing this event?

You get around 15 pearls for every palm sapling you find, then 30-60 for planting three of them, which seems like a lot more than 30 pearls for finding THREE colored pearls for a given oyster.

At first I thought it would be best to do them while finding palm saplings, but it feels like it takes LONGER to get pearls due to taking the time to fly down, break open the deposit, then go back up and head to the correct oyster!