Then and now: Cancale, France

The upper photo taken at high tide, the lower at low tide.  More than 100 years separate them.

Oyster fishing in the 19th and early 20th centuries was originally carried out by small trawling boats known as bisquines.  (Cancale bisquines had white hulls, a Granville bisquines' hull was painted black.)

Cancale (in Brittany) and Granville (in Normandy, on the opposite side of the bay of Mont St Michel) were friendly rivals in shipbuilding and oyster trawling.  Today oyster culture is totally different, and Cancale accounts for about 20% of the France's annual oyster harvest.