Chaland Turquoise

Fort Royer is one of the smallest oyster ports on the île d’Oléron, situated in the Atlantic off the west coast of France. Here the flat-bottomed boats called “chalands” take off to tend to the oyster beds that lie in the sea channel that runs between the island and the continent.

But as some oyster farmers retire and hang up their waders for good, so too are the boats that served them, definitively moored up on narrow tidal channels, next to shabby wooden cabins. What remains are pockets of history in a hauntingly beautiful landscape.