Ladell Cruise 2018: Devil's Island, French Guiana

Following our wonderful visit to Barbados, we continued our journey down to South America with a 2 day sail to French Guiana, crossing the Equator along the way. The ocean had some strong swells from the east along with a few heavy squalls so the ship was moving moderately, but we enjoyed our sea days. We had time to relax around the ship and catch up on a few personal things.

Fifteen miles off the coast of French Guiana are three rocky islets known as the Iles du Salut (Salvation Islands). The best known and smallest of the three is Ile du Diable (Devil's Island). All three islands are part of France's notorious prison settlement that was established in 1852. Over 80,000 French political prisoners and criminals were deported there for almost a century until it closed down in 1953. The accused who were sentenced to over eight years of imprisonment had to remain there permanently. Very few prisoners ever returned home to France.

Ile St. Joseph (1 of the 3 Salvation Islands)

Ile du Diable (notorious Devil's Island)

Ile Royale (largest of the 3 Salvation Islands)

We visited the largest of the islets called Ile Royale. It is the only one inhabited. It has a small harbor and is known for its flowers and monkeys. Ile Royale was the headquarters of the penal colony. There are no proper roads there, thus are no cars or taxis, but there are good trails around the island so we could easily walk the whole island in about 1 hour. However, we spent longer so we could visit many of the remaining buildings including the Governor's house, the hospital and prison buildings and inmates' cells. The old isolation cells were scary to see and imagine what the conditions must have been like. It is easy to understand why so many inmates died there. All three islands have rocky coastlines with rough breaking surf and heavy jungle terrain so escaping was pretty much impossible.

However, one prisoner did escape. Henri Charriere, known as "Papillon" ( butterfly ) was condemned in 1933 for a murder he did not commit and was sent there when he was 25 years old. He tried to escape 8 times, but each time was recaptured. After 11 years of imprisonment, including solitary confinement where many prisoners went mad, he finally escaped from Devil's Island on his 9th attempt. The famous movie about him called Papillon was filmed on location on Ile Royale.