No Devils on Devil's Island

At least I don't think there are any.  We actually did not set foot on the island, but we were next door on Ile Royale.  The Iles du Salut, (Salvation Islands) is the largest of the three islands which were used by the French as prisons for the worst offenders.  Devil's Island held mainly political prisoners who were sentenced to prison for life.  These were the islands of no escape since the surrounding waters were home to hungry sharks, but someone did escape and wrote all about it.  Later his success was made famous in the movie Papillion.  You may have seen the old version several years ago, or the new one recently released.

Most of the buildings are now abandoned, but the Governor's house is a very small museum with everything in French. It is amazing to think that parts of the prison were still in use until 1953.  The jungle reclaims it's own.  Several people got pictures of monkeys and a large hamster type rodent.  I saw the rodent, but never more than a quick glimpse, so I got no pictures.





Ile Royale, the largest of the islands, housed
prisoners, guards, a chapel and a hospital for the prison staff.  No such luck for the prisoners.  If you got sick, you either recovered or you died.  It did not make much difference to the staff, except that there was one less body to clothe and feed.







 



 
  There is now a hotel on the island, complete with satellite TV.  There did not seem to be any guests walking around.

The small buildings and the even smaller cells are now just ruins.  The cells for solitary confinement were even smaller, with no windows.













The docking facilities can only handle small boats, so the Viking Sun anchored off shore and used the tenders (lifeboats) for transportation to the land.  The sea seemed quite smooth until you tried to get into the tender.  Then you watched the tender go up and down about 3 feet.  At the moment the two floors were level, four crew members, 2 on the Sun and 2 on the tender, threw you onto the tender, where you quickly found a seat and hung on for the ride.  It was much easier boarding to go back to the ship.