Hassel Island (also sometimes Hassell Island) is a small island of the U.S. Virgin Islands, a United States territory located in the Caribbean Sea. Hassel Island lies in the Charlotte Amalie harbor just south of Saint Thomas and east of Water Island, with which it is part of the sub-district of Water Island. The roughly island was once a peninsula of Saint Thomas, known as Orkanhullet (Hurricane Hole). Hassel Island was separated by the Danish government in 1860, and named for the Hassel family who owned much of the estate. In March 2012, the MTV's reality TV series The Real World was filmed for its twenty-seventh season on Hassel Island. It is the only season that the television series has filmed in the Caribbean. The season completed its filming two months later in May 2012. In 2015, that land was purchased to be used as a lot for a home. There are under five homes built on this island. It does not seem to be a fast growing populous place, but rather a more secluded and private island. History Careening Cove, a bay on Hassel Island, appears on maps as early as 1687. The Danish used Hassel Island's strategic location to defend the busy Charlotte Amalie harbor in the 18th and 19th centuries. The British occupied Hassel Island during the Napoleonic Wars. The ruins of several British buildings remain on Hassel Island, including Fort Willoughby, which was built on the site of the older Prince Frederik's Battery (Fort Frederik), Fort Shipley (Shipley's Battery), and Cowell's Battery. All three were constructed around 1802. In the 1840s, the St. Thomas Marine Railway Company constructed the St. Thomas Marine Railway Slip. Later renamed the Creque Marine Railway, it is one of the earliest steam-powered marine railways in the western hemisphere and perhaps the oldest surviving example of such a railway. The Hamburg-based Boulton Company built the railway's steam engine. In the 1860s, the Danish government dug a channel that separated Hassel Island from Saint Thomas and improved the circulation of the Charlotte Amalie harbor. The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company operated its West Indies hub on Hassel Island from about 1850 until the 1870s. In 1871, the Hamburg America Line set up a coaling station on Hassel Island. There was also a leprosarium on the island. The channel was widened by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1919, shortly after the