Linked to the Gironde estuary by a channel fed by the Juliat (a modest stream rising a few kilometers upstream, at Font-Garnier), the port itself consists of a channel five meters wide, directly linked to the estuary, and lined with small jetties where boats moor. It ends with a bridge-lock, where the green route (Royan-Bordeaux tourist route) passes. Historically, the port of St Seurin d'Uzet trade (salt, grain and wood were shipped there for a long time, mainly to make barrels), it was also, on occasion, a port of war, protected by a castle. since the Middle Ages. In 1559, they set up fishing there for cod on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, a very lucrative activity at the time. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Saint-Seurin was a pilot station for boatmen, who helped inexperienced sailors make their way through this willingly capricious "rivyere de Bourdeaux". The inhabitants who have a boat go out to fish for sturgeon (called Créa or Créac in Saintongeais and Occitan), meager or lamprey, and occasionally "traffic" with the other ports of the estuary. If the flesh of the sturgeon is eaten, the eggs are, at best, fed to the ducks! In 1866, a German merchant passing through the region, named Schwax, took offense at this practice and introduced a man named Roux, a fisherman in Saint-Seurin, to the techniques of preparing caviar. In 1902, the La Rochelle house Toutblanc took a close interest in Girondin caviar. However, badly prepared, too salty, too expensive too, it hardly seduces amateurs. Soon, sturgeon eggs are once again the delight of farmyard birds. The situation changed in the 1920s. Tradition has it that a Russian aristocrat exiled in France after the 1917 revolution, passing through Saint-Seurin, saw with horror a fisherman throwing the precious caviar back into the sea. Indignant, she would have said to him: “it is a crime that you are committing, it is with these eggs that we manufacture caviar, at home, in Russia and it is a pure marvel! ". A Russian specialist is sent on site. The Prunier house bought the exclusive rights and soon, four “preparers” embarked on this activity in Saint-Seurin: MM. René and Jude Milh, Mr. Saint-Blancard and Mr. Ephrem. In the 1950s, up to 3 to 5 tonnes of sturgeon were fished per year, and the fish soon became scarce. The state banned this activity in 1982 (the sturgeon having become an endangered species in the region), and since then this prestigious commodity has continued to be produced on both sides of the estuary under the name of caviar de Gironde or caviar d Aquitaine, but exclusively on aquaculture farms.
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