One of the interesting things about French Guiana, at least compared to Suriname (Dutch Guiana), is that you find quite some nice islands not far off the coast, which are easily reachable by boat.
Having said that, Suriname also has many islands, but those are river and lake islands in its interior (many more than French Guiana has), which are popular destinations for ecotourism and the local people.
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Anyway, I visited several of the islands in French Guiana, and it’s very nice to be there because things are so different from the mainland. The seawater is also much clearer — sometimes almost blue or green — very much different from the seawater that reaches the mainland beaches, which are brown and muddy due to deposits from the rivers and the Amazon basin.
The best-known islands are of course the Îles du Salut, also known as the Salvation Islands, which lie off the coast of Kourou. These are three small islands: Île Royale (Royal Island), Île Saint-Joseph (Saint-Joseph Island), and Île du Diable (Devil’s Island, infamously known from the Papillon escape story).
In the past, the Salvation Islands were notorious islands as the site of a French penal colony that operated from 1852 to 1953. Today, however, they are a popular tourist destination, and you can stay there overnight (on Île Royale), while enjoying various small beaches, tropical forest, hiking, and wildlife. I went once, and stayed there two nights.
Interestingly enough, the islands were named the “Salvation Islands” because they were a safe refuge for early French colonists and missionaries to escape deadly diseases of the mainland, such as malaria and yellow fever. It’s of course bitter irony that these islands later became a prison, which had not much to do any longer with “salvation.”
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In addition, there are also other islands, but these lie off the coast near Cayenne, which include Îlet la Mère (also known as Monkey Island, because of numerous Squirrel Monkeys inhabiting the island), Îlet le Père, Le Malingre, and Les Mamelles (two little twin-islands), which are all part of the Des Îlets de Rémire (Rémire Islands).
Of these islands, I only visited Îlet la Mère, where you can hike around the island and enjoy the forest, although there are really too many monkeys. Moreover, they are used to people and literally continually jump on you when they suspect that you have food with you (for instance, when you make noise with a plastic bag, or so). It’s funny, because at the beach there’s a very large cage, not for the monkeys but for humans, so that you can sit inside and have your snack or lunch in peace.
On one of my outings, I also visited the two Connétables Islands (Îles du Connétable), which are two treeless cliffs emerging from the sea, and which boast an impressive number of birds, actually serving as a bird nesting site.
I think all these islands of French Guiana give the country this something “extra special,” apart from its imposing and magnificent interior — the Amazon rainforest.
