On September 3, we reached French Guiana. We are thinking about all the kids who will go to school for the first time at this time of the year when we enter the Mahury river. There is a channel to get in the river and the dredger "Le Mahury" is working every single day to make sure the small cargo ships can enter the Degrad-des-Cannes harbour.

The river is only 3 to 5 meters deep. We see the cargos rights after the naval base and then a few sailing boats on several pontoons with a footbridge going to the "land". We decide to anchor for the night. It's great to be perfectly "horizontal" for the nights after a crossing!

The Mahury river itself is very nice, the surrounding forest is really like the Amazon river forest with the many birds such as the red Ibis. From the deck of "Minuit" we realise how much man puts such a burden on Mother nature looking at the river on one side, going very far inland with no human presence for miles and, on the other side, the harbour with the pollution, the noise of all the cranes at work.

As soon as we anchored, we decided to go to the pontoon. There is no space available on the pontoon and some of the boats look abandoned with their ropes black and green from the humidity. We crossed the footbridge to a large parking space and smelly trash cans, not a very welcoming place…

We are far from the capital, Cayenne, 12 km actually. Fortunately we met Guy on the parking lot. He just arrived and rented a car. Two days after our arrival, he drove us to Cayenne to rent a car for 2 days to go to Kourou to the Space Centre which was unfortunately closed and to go to the supermarket to provision for a few weeks.

The following week, we headed for the Devil islands, known for the prisons on the islands of this small archipelago.
First, "Ile Royale", the biggest island with a military hospital and a church. There is also a small museum now in the house of the Prison Director of the time.

The following day we went for a walk on St Joseph island where we saw the ruins of the "Reclusion" cells. The living conditions were extremely tough with bars as roofs and considering the fact the rainy season lasts for about 8 months here with an unbearable heat, there is no doubt there were so many dead prisoners thrown to the sharks.
 
A week later, we sailed to the river "Le Kourou", just 7 nautical miles but at the speed of 7 knots thanks to a very good wind and the current with the rising tide in the river.

In the river channel, there is just one pontoon. We headed further down the river to anchor. There are at least 15 sailing boats here, 95% French. They are waiting for the end of the cyclone season before heading to the Caribbean.