Devil's Island

Hi All,

Today we visited Devil’s Island, the infamous French prison colony in French Guiana which operated from 1852 to 1946.   Actually,  what is commonly called Devil’s Island is a group of three very small islands which are collectively called Iles du Sulat (Islands of Salvation).   The three islands are called Ile Royal, Ile St Joseph and Ile du Diable (Devil’s Island).

 More than 80,000 men were imprisoned on these islands.  Each island served a different purpose in the penal colony.  Ile Royal  was the site of the administrative center, the guards’ housing, and for prisoners deemed less dangerous.  Ile Royal is shown here (The German cruise ship Bremen was anchored next to us).

The more troublesome convicts and murderers were kept at Ile St Joseph shown here.

Political prisoners were held in isolation on Devil’s Island.  The most famous of these prisoners was Alfred Dreyfus, a French army officer who was falsely convicted of treason.  In this picture of Devil’s Island, you can see the small house were Dreyfus was held.  (He was later cleared in a retrial and set free).

Today only Ile Royal can be visited.  We took the ship tender to the island’s small dock.

Many of the island’s buildings remain.  The church

Hospital and light house

Warden’s house

Prison walls

Administration building walls

Cells for the condemned.

Our guide said the guillotine sat on these blocks in the yard in front of the cells for the condemned.

Cells for those in solitary confinement.

It feels a bit strange to be walking around this place where so many horrors occurred.  However, it is quite beautiful and a nice walking path circles the entire island.  Also, lots of animals live on the island, like this monkey.

And this rodent, not sure what they are called.  Kind of like a very big rat with no tail.

Lots of these running around.

Many pretty trees on the island.

The island in now used by the French space agency as a tracking station for rocket launches from French Guiana.  There is a small hotel for visitors.  We saw these folks enjoying a swim.  The waters around the island used to be shark infested, hopefully not now.

Many years ago, this swimming area was built by the inmates for the warden so he could swim without the danger of sharks.

Part of the path around the island, this also built by inmates.

So that is a look at our day on Devil’s Island.  This was our third visit, but we still find it interesting and enjoyed our walk around.  We are now on our way to Barbados, we arrive Thursday morning.  Today we were given our instructions for leaving the ship in Miami.  The end is near!!  Bye for now.

Jer and Helen

The Amazing Amazon

Hi All,

Today we are at sea heading for our next port of Devil’s Island.  We have been on the Amazon for the last three days. The river is simply amazing, and enormous!  At 4000 miles long, it is the second longest river in the world (the Nile wins).  But, it by far contains more water than any other river.  The river’s flow rate of 55 million gallons per second is greater than the next seven largest rivers combined.  The Amazon is responsible for 20% of the Earth’s fresh water flow into the oceans.   The width of the rivers ranges from as little as a mile to 240 miles where it enters the Atlantic ocean.  Pictures can’t really convey the vastness of this river, here are a couple.  The Amazon is brown, not because it is polluted, but due to the silt that runs off into it.  

 

Our first port of call was the city of Macapa.  We stopped here to pick up the Amazon river pilot who guides us through the river.  Most of the passengers made the trip into Macapa; but, to quote Gertrude Stein, “There is no there there.”  There really wasn’t much to see.  The town’s main attraction is the Marker Zero which sits on the equator.  At this spot, one can stand in both the southern and northern hemisphere.  We didn’t make it to Marker Zero, but Helen snapped this picture as we rode by on our bus (pretty exciting, eh).

So after a short stay in Macapa, we set sail for our next port of Alter Do Chao.  About this time the Captain came on the ship's PA system and told us we might run out of fresh water and that we should all conserve.  Huh?  After sailing 18 hours from Macapa, we arrived at Alter Do Chao.  The ship lowered about four tenders into the water to get all the passengers ashore.  They then discovered that the water at the dock was too shallow for the tenders to operate.  So, the Captain then said we would not anchor at Alter Do Chao, but instead we would proceed to Santarem where we could refresh our water supply.  It only took about two hours to get to Santarem, this was our arrival.

Shortly after docking two 4 inch hoses were hooked to the ship and the water crisis was resolved.  The next day many passengers took these boats on a tour which was described as a Piranha fishing trip.  We have been to the Amazon before and we did catch a Piranha, so we didn’t see any need to do this tour.

Presumably no one catch a Piranha this large.

So, we walked from the ship into Santarem’s city center which was a couple miles from the dock.  Along the way, we stopped at this market on the water.   Most of the stores were closed as it was Sunday.  This market was quite busy.

This family is loading their canoe after shopping.

At the market a young boy was using fish on a string to attract the famous Amazon pink dolphins.  The fish floated on the surface and the dolphins would come and snatch it off the string (no hook).  Helen got these dolphin pictures.

Across the street from the waterfront market was another large and active market.  Lots of products being sold.

Shrimp

There are very few roads in the Amazon region.  Most travel is done on boats such as these.

Sometimes a powered boat will pull a group of canoes behind it as you can see in this long range photo.  All these canoes had people in them.

For overnight travel, people hang a hammock for sleeping from hooks on the ship’s ceiling.  On the mid deck of this ship, you can see hammocks hanging down.  Quite a contrast to the Crystal Serenity docked behind.

After a couple hours of walking, we returned to the ship.  At almost every port we visit, a craft market like this one will spring up on the dock.  Bargaining skills are important when shopping here!

At 4pm we set sail for Devil’s Island.  Santarem as we sailed away.

We have been to Devil’s Island twice before, but we are still looking forward to our day there.  Many of the old buildings from the infamous French prison remain, and it is an interesting place to walk around.  After Devil’s Island we have a sea day before a day in Barbados.  Then St Thomas the next day, two more sea days, and then Miami.  Today we pulled out the first suitcase to begin packing.  We have 5 very large bags.  Three will be shipped UPS to Dahlonega, and two will be checked on our flight to Atlanta.  Will post again after St Thomas.  Bye for now.

Jer and Helen