Devil’s Island

Devil’s Island is a small group of islands off the coast of French Guiana that was used as a penal colony until 1953.

The islands have strong currents in the area and sharks, making escape difficult. The book and movie Papillon is about an escape from the island. They used to show the movie on this cruise, but people complained it wasn’t filmed on the actual island, so they stopped showing it.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day, and we had a pleasant day at sea headed towards Devil’s Island. There were numerous choices for Thanksgiving dinner, which allowed Donna and I to get different choices.

The humidity is going to take some getting used to. When I bring my camera outside, it takes 15-20 minutes for it to stop fogging up as the ship is air conditioned. The following photo was taken a short pause after wiping, and it looks really foggy. Frigatebirds are large seabirds.

A very slow tender operation. It seems all the tender drivers need some docking practice, as that was slow. Since the ship just returned to service recently, this may be the first time this crew has tendered passengers. The passenger median age is pretty old, we see more canes, walkers, wheelchairs and electric scooters than we did on the Panama Canal cruise. So loading and unloading also were slower.

We landed on Isle Royale and walked around it. There is a walking path around the perimeter, and a couple paths that go up around the buildings.

No one is allowed on the actual small Devil’s Island. That island was used for political prisoners.

It was hot and humid, but a pleasant sea breeze was blowing, which helped when we walked around the island. We didn’t see, hear or feel a mosquito. This was the only stop that required a Yellow Fever vaccination.

Soon after starting our walk around the island we saw capuchin monkeys. One of them was trying to crack open a coconut in the tree,and making some progress, but then dropped it and came down.

The Spider monkeys were pretty active and not too afraid of people.

The Agouti is a large rodent that is common on the island.

We saw green sea turtles in the water and took some time to get a photo. They don’t surface for long, so it’s tricky.

The ruddy Turnstone is a common shore bird.

The building complex has had some restoration work done on it, but many buildings like the hospital are unsafe to enter.

The church can be entered and it’s possible to see some of the paintings the prisoners made.

It’s now possible to actually stay on the island in a building that has a few hotel rooms and a cafe.

Last tender back was supposed to be 1:30pm and they were still bringing folks to the island at 1:15pm. I think last tender ended up being 3pm. Getting the tenders loaded and stowed was slow as well.