We are at Devil’s Island off the coast of French Guiana. We had been there two years ago on our trip around South America and Antarctica and were not disposed to get too excited about revisiting. We’ll see…

 

Here are a few photos of Île Royale and Île du Diable. 

As I said, not very exciting, especially the second time around. There are a number of folks on this cruise who have also been to Devil’s Island before and the ship, although technically at anchor, is a lot like a sea day – few have gone ashore.

Devil’s Island is actually three islands off the coast of Guiana. The Îles du Salut consist of Île Royale, Île du Diable, and Île Saint-Joseph. This notorious prison camp was still in operation as recently as the 1950s. Although Île du Diable is the best-known of the islands, the entire complex was known as Devil’s Island,, including the land-based prison farms as well. Currently, aside from some caretaker personnel, none of the islands are inhabited and only Île Royale is accessible by any means – including by boat. Île du Diable had its supplies ferried over via line and pulley, a tower of which is still extant on Île Royale. Makes one wonder how they got the mostly political prisoners over to Île du Diable.

Tomorrow another sea day and then five ports in a row! We will be making stops at Barbados, St. Lucia, Granada, St. Barts, and San Juan. We have been to all of these at one time or another, but not recently. I hope to have new and exciting things to report from all of them.

P.S.: If you have really sharp eyes, and if you had read my blog about our South America, Antarctica, and Amazon trip two years ago, you may recognize some of these pictures (we cheated and made it a sea day...).

Stay tuned…