Harbour

Marennes

Name: Marennes
Address: Saint-Just-Luzac, FR

Saint-Just-Luzac, FranceCharente-Maritime

Type: Harbour

Oyster and pleasure port at the head of the Cayenne channel, on the right bank of the Seudre estuary in Charente-Maritime.

Guide

Approach and anchoring

Enter the Seudre between the pillars of the Seudre viaduct and follow the buoyed Cayenne channel for 4 km, the longest in the Marennes-Oléron basin. A lock at the top of the channel retains water in the basin and prevents silting. Best entered on a rising tide. Channel dries at low water of springs.

Practical

Around 90 berths on pontoons with about 10 spaces reserved for visitors, plus 40 professional oyster-boat berths. Water and electricity on the pontoons, showers at the harbour office, fuel available in the village. Managed since 2019 by the Syndicat Mixte des Ports de la Seudre.

Ashore

Cité de l'Huître, the visitor centre dedicated to oyster farming on stilts above the claires, is 400 m from the port. The village of Marennes and its Saint-Pierre-de-Sales church with a 78 m lantern tower dated 1475 is 2 km north. Brouage, the fortified town birthplace of Samuel de Champlain, is 7 km north-east.

History

The Cayenne channel was linked to the Charente-Seudre canal in 1862, and the connecting lock was built to stop tidal silt blocking the channel. Marennes has been the heart of French oyster farming since the XIXth century, and the claires around the port give the green-tinted fines de claire their colour.

Story

Samuel de Champlain, founder of Quebec in 1608, was born in nearby Brouage around 1567, when the town was still a working seaport before the marshes silted up.