Iles Du Salut or Devil's Island, French Guiana – April 25

Iles Du Salut or Devil's Island, French Guiana – April 25

We had a perfect day for Devil's Island; flat seas, clear sky and hot and humid – about a million degrees and 2 million humidity or at least that's what it felt like. But it was really perfect. I've really been waiting for this port because of the monkeys. I do like seeing the ruins of the old French prison – very haunting. The book/movie Papillon was based on this location. It isn't too far from the mainland of French Guiana, but they didn't fear escapes because if they didn't drown, the sharks would surely get them.

There is a hotel/restaurant located here but it's quite basic – it is located at the top of the island and makes a nice stop for a cold drink while you are hiking around. It takes about an hour to walk at a casual pace around the whole island. The tropical vegetation is so thick that you have to stay on the established pathways.

I had stashed a bag of cookies for our visit here (having picked up that trick on our last visit) to temp the monkeys. It worked beautifully! We were probably about a quarter of the way around the island when we found the first ones – these were little ones with cute yellow hands and feet and little white circles around their eyes (I don't know the species – I'll have to check when I get home). They loved the little cookie pieces and most weren't shy. I was so busy playing with them (feeding) that I didn't get many pics – but Jim got this great shot of one that appears to be helping me take pictures. The real story is that I had a cookie in my hand and then squatted down to get a couple pics and this little guy knew the cookie was there. He came over to me and climbed up my leg, across my back and down my arm. I didn't want to move so I wouldn't scare him so I barely saw him until he grabbed the cookie from inside my hand and jumped down. I told him he was a pig, but he just smiled back and ran off. Having given out about half the cookie supply we headed off to find the other monkeys.

 

We found them, Hooded Capuchins, just a little further along the path near the cemetery. At first there were just a couple, but once the cookies came out there were probably a couple dozen including several babies. We had such fun with them and I did get quite a few pictures here. When the cookies were almost gone we headed off down the path to the hotel area for one of those cold drinks... Jim had a beer but I decided a cold bottle of water sounded better as it was only about 10:00 and a beer would just make me sleepy. After resting a bit in the outdoor restaurant area we headed back down the same pathway we'd used to come up so I could see my monkeys once more. We did find the Capuchins but my little yellow-hand friends had disappeared. I'm sure glad we went early! After returning to the tender dock area we decided to walk around the other end of the island just to kill a little more time. It was hotter there as there weren't nearly as many trees – when it seemed like we were at the halfway point again, we turned back to the tenders and returned to the nice air-conditioned ship and a shower. This really made a great almost-end for the world cruise for me – we do have one more port in St. Lucia before it is over, but I have really been looking forward to a return to Devil's Island.

Our departure was delayed by almost 3 hours by a problem with closing one of the tender bays, but it was finally resolved and we were on our way about 6:30. The delay means that we will have to scoot along a bit faster to reach St Lucia on time – we are really moving along at almost 20 knots.