Saint Lucia Island is an island in the department of Aude, administratively dependent on the municipality of Port-la-Nouvelle.
Covered with garrigues, it is part of the Conservatoire du littoral since 1984 and is located in the pond of Bages-Sigean .
Saint Lucia Island is the largest of the Narbonne ponds and is an important part of the ancient Narbonne port system.
Its ancient occupation and the exploitation of its quarries are known to all but they have never been the subject of exhaustive and systematic prospecting.
In antiquity, the island was an anchorage for merchant ships.
Mentioned for the first time in history in 881, it shelters the remains of an old chapel, an abbey dependency of Saint-Laurent de Nielle, today, Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, from which it would take its name.
The ruins reappeared following the storm of January 2009, which, by uprooting many pine trees, brought back to light the remains that had disappeared since the 1980s.
The island has been developed for hiking. It can be accessed through the eponymous lock.
Bordered to the north by the coastal lagoon of Ayrolle, to the west by the Bages-Sigean lagoon and to the east by the Mediterranean Sea, the island and the salt marshes of Saint Lucia make up exceptional landscapes, in which the water bodies, the relief and the vegetation are interwoven in a territory of contrasts where spaces and environments of almost opposite nature coexist: natural and artificial spaces, wetlands and arid scrublands, pine forests and sansouïres.
The beach of La Vieille Nouvelle, a vast wild area, offering a feeling of infinity, offers multiple facets according to the seasons, sometimes flooded by the sea entrances, sometimes swept by the tramontane. Trapped by the plants and sea leads, the sand has settled on the back beach to form more or less mobile dune cords, a fragile environment on which a large number of protected species thrive.
The island is a haven of peace for fauna and flora and also for many visitors attracted by the tranquility of the site.
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