The Papillon Trail - the Transportation Camp of St Laurent and Isles du Salut

The home of the Nereids' Rally is St Laurent du Maroni, 20 miles up the Maroni River in French Guyana - and St Laurent was also the home for 70,000 prisoners, shipped from France every two years over a period of almost 100 years.  The penal system reached notoriety by the book Papillon later made into a film starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. The prison was finally shut down after the Second World War in 1946.

The remnants of the old dock where the prisoners would have been put ashore after a long sail from France.  

The Gates to the Transportation Centre - the new arrivals were stripped, washed, issued with uniforms and sorted into categories.

The accommodation blocks for prisoners who were not being subjected to additional punishment.  After the prison closed these blocks were purchased by a local businessman for housing, and finally bought by the Town of St Laurent in 1992.  This area was not open to the public.

Many prisoners were sent this way, for punishment.

Convicts awaiting a further hearing for misdemeanours were locked in one of 4 identical Blockhouses at night, up to 60 men in these blocks, sleeping on the concrete.  Additional punishment involved being shackled by the ankle to the steel bar for up to 22 hours a day.

Once the disciplinary hearing had taken place, prisoners were frequently sentenced to long periods of solitary confinement in very small cells.

Solitary confinement cells - one section of 12 cells was reserved for those awaiting the death sentence.  The guillotine was conveniently located just in front of the cells.

A single cell, complete with ankle shackle - prisoners sometimes spent years in these cells.

Cell 47.  Papillon spent two years in here after his first escape attempt.

Papillon's first escape attempt involved a trip up stream to Leper's Island.  In the days before a cure was found, Leper's were sent to live out their lives away from the uninflected population - the Lepers provided Papillon with a good boat and greatly helped him on his way.  

Leper's Island, a couple of miles upstream from St Laurent.  All that remains now are some stone bases, the recently added roofs make the perfect support for a hammock and a pic-nic. Amazingly, Papillon made it all the way to Trinidad, a good 500 miles, before he made landfall.

Papillon himself spent 11 months on the run, much of the time with an Indiginous Indian tribe on the Venezuelan / Columbian border before deciding to go back to civilisation for revenge.  Unfortunately for him, he was caught again and transported to the Isles du Salut - also known as Devil's Islands, where escape was considered extremely difficult.

We followed the trail to the Islands.

Sunrise, leaving the Maroni.

Once we had left the river, the wind and current were against us - it was a hard sail, the 100 miles took us almost two days.  We set off with another Rally yacht, Atla - they were boarded by customs and searched for two hours off the French Guyana coast.

The Douane  - French Customs boat came and had a close look at us but presumably had their hands full with Atla so left us to continue in peace.

Arriving at the Isles du Salut, also called the Devil's Islands.  Finally released by the Customs, Atla is the other yacht in the anchorage.

The view from Isle Royale.  The mainland is 15 km in the distance.

The first island we visited was Isle Royale, the largest of the islands at 0.16 sq miles (100 acres) it housed about 1000 'common law' or petty criminals and the Administration Officers.

Situated next to the light house, the Hospital dominates the top of the island.

The Hospital

It is no longer safe to go into the building.

But with its own Ice Maker outside the door it clearly was a well appointed facility in its day!

There is a large church on the island, and also the remains of a Nunery - the Nuns did not agree with the harsh treatment of the prisons and the ongoing conflict caused them to leave after a fairly short stay on the island.

Reclaimed by nature - the original 1850's Nun's accommodation block.

This was the reservoir - there were also some wells on the island.

And of course some solitary confinement cells.

Solitary cells - there was no thought of correction or education in those days, just punishment.

Interestingly you can now stay on the island in little chalets - the prison island has become a little haven for those seeking a very quiet holiday.

Devil's Island is the smallest of the three, and was used to house approximately 100 political prisoners who were kept. You are not able to visit the island, when it was in Prison a cable was used to transport provisions and possibly guards - when the sea was calm, small boats were used to row prisoners across the gap.

The third island in the group is St Joseph. Smaller than Royale at a mere 0.05 sq miles (35 acres) it held escapers and troublemakers. Not surprisingly there were lots of cells for solitary confinement, and Papillon spent 18 months of an 8 year sentence in one such cell when recaptured after his earlier escape.

The Cells - the roof has long since collapsed, as has the walkway over the cells used by the guards - an alternative take on the punishment here was that it was a place of incessant supervision and complete silence - no speaking at all. Even the guards didn't wear shoes in order to maintain the oppressive silence.

A single cell - the ceiling is steel bars, the guards were overhead and looked down on the prisoners below.  They were allowed out for a walk in another larger cell for one hour per day.

Again, the jungle is doing a very good job of hiding the evidence!

One of the three main accommodation blocks, prisoners slept in rows of hammocks here.

A few ceiling beams remain, but the building is falling into ruins now.

Many many prisoners died on the islands and they were simply thrown in the sea between Royale and St Joseph's islands at 6pm - at that time this sustained a very large and healthy shark population.  Further discouraging the prisoners from trying to escape by sea!

Wardens and other prison employees were buried in this cemetery - interestingly only the graves of clergymen are still intact - the rest look very much as if they have been vandalised.

Despite their history, they are beautiful islands - with lots of wildlife.

The peacock that joined us for lunch.

Lots of little monkeys.

And this is an Agouti - looks like a cross between a Guinea pig and a kangaroo!

We could have spent longer on the islands, and unfortunately we didn't have time to visit the mainland towns of Kourou and Cayenne.  We had planned to visit by road earlier to see the rocket launch, but unfortunately they only go once a month, and the bus drivers were on strike that day!  We did see the rocket from St Laurent - even from 70 km away it was pretty impressive.

The Ariane Rocket launch - 70 km away!

So finally, our route with the Nereids Rally - about 45 tacks down to the Islands, and none on the way back to Tobago!

So it's back to Grenada now, we've got visitors!  Clare and Jamie are joining us for a couple of weeks in the Grenadines.

French Guyana, with Nereids Rally

Having spent 10 days enjoying the Essequibo River in Guyana it was time to head a bit further south, past Suriname, and on to French Guyana.  At its peak, the river flows at over 3 knots down stream so we caught the afternoon tide and anchored off Roed en Rust village with the intention of setting off on the 360nm sail to French Guyana at first light.

We all knew that there would be fishing nets strung across the estuary, the scale of them is truly amazing, many are a good  kilometre long, with a small flag at each end and smaller floats along the length of the net.  The plan was to motor to the mouth of the river, looking out for nets and fishing boats and once clear of the majority of the hazards, set the sails.  So much for plans ... One of the rally boats got well and truly trapped in a net - Ian helped cut them free which involved scuba diving in visibility of approximately 30 cm in a current that was by then running at over 3 kts - staying with the trapped yacht was a challenge in itself!  Eventually the yacht was free, but still had net on the propellor. Another dive was needed, but at least this time Ian and the yacht were drifting together on the current.

Blue Sun, the stranded yacht being towed away from the nets by Atla.

Finally sailing, the next day we passed a fishing boat that had caught a large shark, no idea what kind, but I was definitely glad I didn't know about them while Ian was in the water!

The fisherman is leaning over with a machete, Duplicat, another Rally boat is in the distance.

The sail was hard going - strong current, always against us, and beat the whole way.  Sailing close to land we often got a lift, but you really had to watch out for nets - not really the place to be in the dark so we tended to tack out to sea at dusk.  We did have some spectacular fishing success again, so plenty of fresh fish for dinner.

Spanish Mackerel, about 10lbs of it.

Heading for French Guyana - after several days at sea, we passed close enough to the Rally yacht Merlin for Damien to take our photo.  As usual, the Hydrovane is steering for us.

After 5 days at sea we arrived at the entrance to the Maroni River - by luck, our timing was perfect and we caught the incoming tide up stream to our anchorage where the rally boats gradually assembled over the next few days.

Dusk in the Maroni - with the Nereids Rally boats World Dancer II and Merlin

Dawn - the time when you could hear the cries of the Howler Monkeys in the distance.

A rare sight - Nautilus in the early morning fog, photo taken by Sabina on Atanga.

We spent a week at anchor in the Crique Coswine, one of the tributaries of the Maroni River.  Paying attention to the very significant tide we took the kayak upstream until the tide turned - the current is so strong you simply have to go with the flow.

A great way to see the river - photos from Damien, on Merlin.

Taking a break, and letting Ian do all the work!

Inspired by our efforts in the kayak we set off in the dinghy the next day to see how far we could get up one of the smaller waterways

Following Peter and Ewa from Coconut as the river became narrower.

Very soon after this we admitted defeat and headed back down to the yachts. It really is untouched virgin forest.

On this trip we visited the Amerindian village of Ayawande on the river bank near the yachts.

Ian found a drinking partner - the drink is cassava wine, drunk out of calabash bowls and made from cassava and sweet potatoes.  It is then fermented - the cassava having first been chewed and spat out by the elder ladies of the community!  We were told ours had not been fermented, but we did not dwell on the finer details of the production of the drink.

An Amerindian lady hand making clay pots in Ayawande Village.

The village - only accessible by boat, so no need for roads.  There were hardly any people in the village, we were told that during term time the children go to school in larger villages and the population drops to about 30 people, but during holidays there can be several hundred in the village - you could certainly see evidence of lots of large scale communal cooking.  

Nereids Rally had organised a trip by pirogue across the river to the village of Galibi, a Surinam Amerindian Village near the Maroni estuary - a stunningly beautiful location.

The view across the Maroni from Surinam.

We were given a thorough tour of the village - fishing is an important part of life here, fish is not only eaten fresh, but also smoked and salted.

Fish drying racks.  We did try some of the smoked fish, prepared in a curry and it was delicious.  The salted fish needes to be soaked and boiled and is a bit more of an acquired taste.

Interestingly the swim bladders are dried separately and exported to China for use in 'Traditional Medicine' although our guide had no idea what healing propertiee they might have.

We were all amazed by the traditional roofs on many of the buildings - they didn't look much from the outside, but the construction was a work of art!

Amerindian roofs - not very impressive from the outside.

We were all amazed at the way the palm leaves were plaited together to make a weather proof roof that will apparently last for tens of years - our guide hardly thought they were worthy of a mention!

After a very tasty fish lunch we watched, and finally participated in a traditional dance - I'm not sure that the music will catch on, there was an opportunity to buy the CD but we all politely declined.

The final rally destination is St Laurent du Maroni, a town known primarily as the location of the French Prison and Transportation Camp made famous in the book Papillon.  Visiting yachts are still very much of a rarity here - Nereids rally organiser Davide has recently created the Marina Sainte Laurent with 30 buoys for yachts and a refurbished dinghy pontoon - and he had organised a reception for our grande arrival. 

With our lifting keel we were able to lead some of the shallower draft yachts up the minor creeks until we rejoined the others and made our way in convoy up to St Laurent.

Heading to the Marina St Laurent - the yachts are 'Dressed Overall' with as many flags as possible on display.  Photo from Sabina, on Atanga.  We are the second yacht from the front.

This old steel ship is just outside the Marina St Laurent.

And this one provides a useful breakwater in the middle of the mooring buoys.

The jungle has moved in.

The House Boat - another use for an old fishing boat.

St Laurent du Maroni is a small multi cultural town, whose main highlights are the bi-weekly market and the old prison and the history surrounding it - as we plan to head to the Salvation Islands, also part of the old prison administration after we leave St Laurent I'll just focus on the Market:

The Chinese Section:  locals queue for the breakfast, so we joined them.

Chinese breakfast Soup - delicious.

The market was surprisingly large, and immaculate.  The produce is mostly arranged in €1 or €2 piles and the quality was excellent.

These are papaya and unripe aubergines.

There were several groups of school children in different coloured t shirts on a trip to the market.

Crossing the border over to Surinam is very easy, so a group of us from the Nereids rally  took a pirogue across the river to visit Paramaribo the capital city.

Pirogue travel - the base of the boat is a single section of hollowed out tree, with rather flimsy sides and bench seating.  You would certainly not want to be caught in one in a storm, but throughout daylight hours you can usually see at least 10 crossing the river at any one time.

The Paramaribo Pirogue Park - waiting for customers.

The city of Paramaribo itself is surprisingly large for a country with apparently 600,000 inhabitants, Dutch is the official language and the old town has some fine examples of its  Duch Colonial history.

There were streets of old wooden ship lap boarded houses in the old town, although lots were in disrepair, there was lots of evidence of refurbishment and efforts to conserve the historic buildings.

Not sure what was so special about this building, but it was surrounded by the most lethal wall topped with broken glass bottles and barbed wire.

Possibly not quite the style of refurbishment historians would hope for!

Paramaribo really is multicultural - Hindu, Muslim, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Dutch Reformed, Moravian and Indiginous beliefs all seem to live side by side. 

The Mosque next door to the Synagogue.

The Synagogue was originally built in 1719, and rebuilt as it stands today in the mid 1830's.

The much more recent Mosque, completed in 1984.

Not quite next door, but a short walk away is the Catholic Basilica, St Petrus en Paulus.

Apparently the largest wooden Roman Catholic Church in South America - a very impressive building.

And of course there was a market!

Two stories of market.

More aluminium cook ware than you can imagine.  Aluminium is mined in Surinam.

Tomatoes are expensive and highly prized.

Fish is everywhere, neatly stacked.

As in the St Laurent market, you buy produce by the pile - shelled and unshelled cooked prawns.

Land crabs by the string.

Smoked fish - a local delicacy.

We shall soon be waving good bye to our Nereids Rally friends, it's been lots of fun, we have been to places we would never otherwise have visited and we certainly wish David well with his Marina in St Laurent.  The cafe is doing well, the coffee is excellent, and we have even been able to try his very recently arrived Italian Ice Cream.

Gathering for a drink at the cafe.

A sight you don't see every day ... Samuel and Gabrielle taking their orphaned Spider Monkey home on the bike.

And finally - preview of the next blog, this statue commemorates the 70,000 prisoners held and transported through St Laurent before the penal colony was finally closed down in 1953.