We paused offshore for a couple of hours, hoping the seas would settle and allow tendering to Devil's Island. Looked like a tropical paradise, instead of islands of heartbreak. Close by shore off French Guiana, maybe we could see the shore, maybe it was the eye playing tricks.
I looked out and it seemed so close, and it almost didn't seem to matter because while here, it seems to easy to think about getting back at some time in the future. I think this is the way of travelers, it seems so easy to come back to a place while you are here. Yet, once you get home, these places seem so impossibly far away.
I don't know if I'll be back here or not. It is so far out of the way (which I guess was the point of using this as a penal colony). I wonder what the island 'feels' like now. Perhaps the spirits of those who suffered here have asked us to respect their sufferings and to stay away for now. And return some other time if we are ready for their message.
17 April 2008
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