I have not heard of this island previous to seeing it on our destination list. I did a little research and listen to talks about it before we arrived. It was a penal colony in the 19th and 20th which operated under French rule. No one lived on the island now and it is just a tourist destination with some ruins. The prison island was also mentioned in the book Papillon, written by Henri Charrière, which then was turned into the movie Papillon featuring Steve McQueen. Stepping out of the ships air condition as we got closer to the island I was blasted with hot, humid air. The cameras lens immediately was fogged up from all this…amateur move on my part. When we got to the island by shuttling out of the life boats we set off to go see some of the ruins. There are many half fallen structures and we made it to the old hospital which was tucked away behind a bunch of palm trees. We continued around the find the old cells that looked like they would be miserable to stay in due to the heat a humidity. Walking around back we saw some monkeys jumping around some trees and went straight for them. They were begging us for some food which we didn’t have, but a local lady who cares for the land saw us and brought us some banana bread to feed them so they would come closer. Walking towards the back side of the island on our way back to the ship the water looked very inviting. A reason people couldn’t escape when this was a prison was from the fast moving currents surrounding the island which would sweep you out to sea very quickly. We came across a little inlet where some people were swimming and had to jump in the cool off, the heat was just ridiculous. As usual, our time was running out so we rushed back to catch our ride back to the ship, being the last ones to board. I really enjoyed stopping at this beautiful little island and learning about its dark past.
