More history: Punta Francesa/Francesca

[El Graduado]

The reef known as “La Francesca” (a proper name in Italian) or “La Francesa” (meaning a French woman in Spanish) is a good example of “name drift”. Originally, the name was Francesa and named after the point of land opposite the reef. It is not an uncommon name in this region; there is another Punta Francesa near Rio Lagartos on the north coast of Quintana Roo that was a stop-over for small boats sailing to Cozumel from Dzilam, Sisal and other points west in the 1700s and 1800s.

However, the woman who helps organize Scuba Fest has started promoting the idea that the reef is named after Simone Cousteau. And, some websites now are actually repeating this as gospel. Royal Resorts’ website says “Punta Francesa reef, named for Simone Cousteau, the first woman diver and mother of Jean Michel”. Give it a few years and they will start saying Jacques Ives Cousteau named it after his wife when he was here in 1959, 1960, or 1961 (just pick your year, it makes no real difference) filming his famous documentary that “put Cozumel on the map” and which no one has ever seen because it does not exist.

 

[mstevens]

I really appreciate and enjoy these write-ups about Cozumel place-names.

We actually heard the Simone Cousteau thing very recently from one of 2 divemasters on the boat. The other, our friend who's been diving here for about as long as the other DM had been alive, just rolled his eyes at us.

People really desperately want some sort of Cousteau thing to be true.

 

[Streydog]

I was told by a dive master once that it was named by fisherman because a French woman used to sunbath naked there on the beach.

 

[El Graduado]

Yeah, I have heard variations on that old wives' tale as well. Sometimes it was a French woman on vacation. Sometimes it was a French woman doing a research project down by Cedral who would go to the beach to bathe. Sometimes she was camping on the beach. But none of that is true. The name was in place long before sunbathing French women ever thought of tossing their tops on Cozumel.

I have also found that dive masters, like tour guides, most often default to stories that sound fun, in order to please their guests and enhance their tips.