Cousteau Reserve (Pigeon Islands)

Why is it called the Cousteau Reserve?

The Pigeon Islands take their name from a 17th-century owner, Anthoine Pigeon; they were also called the Îlets à Goyave. They are two andesite rocks, 8 hectares in all, 35 m high at the top of Grand Îlet, owned by the State and managed by the Office national des forêts. In 1959, Jacques-Yves Cousteau tested his diving saucer here and wanted to see the site protected. The name Cousteau Reserve comes from the Malendure shopkeepers, not from any legal text: until 2009, only a prefectural order banned fishing and anchoring around the islets.

The decree of June 3, 2009 made the islets and the surrounding waters, about 400 hectares, the marine core of Guadeloupe National Park. The islets have also been listed as a ZNIEFF, a French natural area of ecological interest, since 1996, and they are part of the archipelago's biosphere reserve. A bronze bust of Commandant Cousteau watches over the Coral Garden at 12 m, and a scorpion endemic to the islets bears his name, Oiclus cousteaui.

Which dives can you do around the Pigeon Islands?

The Pool fills the channel between the two islets: sheltered plateaus less than 6 m deep, used for try dives and children's dives. The Coral Garden starts on a plateau a few meters down, passes Cousteau's bust at 12 m and tips over onto a wall where barracuda circle. The Aquarium, between 5 and 20 m, packs in sponges, gorgonians and hawksbill turtles. Pointe Carangue slopes from 12 to 22 m, in the current that holds the schools of jacks; Pointe Barracuda opens onto the wall, down to 40 m.

The Hot Springs, north of Grand Îlet, are a reminder that the islets are volcanic: a hot spring flows out of the bottom at 26 m, and threads of warm water rise between the rocks. Along with the walls, this is the dive for experienced divers.

How healthy is the reef at the Cousteau Reserve?

The most dived site in France pays for its popularity. The Park and the dive centers agreed to hold the number of dives at the islets between 80,000 and 100,000 a year, and wrecks were sunk along the coast in the late 1990s and early 2000s to offer other sites. The Park's scientific monitoring of twelve stations shows a 54% drop in coral cover between 2012 and 2021 and a 16% rise in macroalgae, after the 2019 bleaching and the 2020 hard coral disease. A public consultation on a management plan for the islets ran from October 2024 to July 2025.

What are the diving rules in the Guadeloupe National Park core zone?

Any contact with fixed wildlife and plants is an offense in the park core zone: put down neither hand nor knee, set your buoyancy before approaching a turtle and do not follow it. Boats do not drop anchor; they use the buoys provided, with the professional buoys reserved for authorized dive centers. Recreational fishing is banned, and so are drones without a permit. Malendure dive centers do not allow sunscreen on board: a Lycra top does the job. At the surface, stay together near the boat, as kayak and shuttle traffic is heavy around the islets.