Sea Spray Cruises celebrate its 30th anniversary

10th November 2021

By Sea Spray Cruises

SAINT LUCIA - The excitement around Sea Spray Cruises and its 30th anniversary doesn’t stop.

The company officially started in October of 1991 as SailAway Tours, but the dream began long before, started with a 15year old boy with a passion for sailing while growing up in the island of Saint Lucia. Sean Devaux had a dream and always believed that he would one day fulfil it. Having left the island for 12yrs he successfully started a business and started a family. It was then with the birth of his son Corey, that Sean decided it was time to return to the island and follow his passion and as such he started making preparations.

It all started with the first purchase in the summer of 1991, Mango Tango found its new home, bought from Ian Banfield in Barbados. The first operation was out of the Ganters Marina for a few years before moving to its current home in Rodney Bay. The husband-and-wife team of Sean and Nancy laid the ground work for what the business has evolved in today. Sean wore many hats as Captain, mechanic and sharing the work as office staff with his wife.

Tout Bagay started it all, tours were sold mostly at hotels and eventually as the years went on cruise ship passengers were targeted. Sean quickly saw that the cruise ships were getting bigger, and the number of guests were quickly increasing, as a result Tango Too followed in 1994 where it was commissioned in Trinidad and had the capacity for 150 guests. Business grew steadily and it was soon time to commission yet another catamaran Jus Tango in 2000 out of St. Vincent with a capacity for 110 guests. With the sale of some major large capacity hotels, tour sales dropped and exclusivity of tours to competitive companies became a game changer.

With the buzz from the Pirates of the Caribbean an opportunity arose, The Brig Unicorn a “pirate ship” was leased for 10yrs in 2003 and with it an elaborate tour was established, a reenactment of a pirate encounter on Pigeon Island with full canon fire. Three other pirate ships followed in keeping with the adventure The Lion in 2004, Liana’s Ransom in 2007 and Black Magic in 2013 which was built from a retired fishing trawler.

Sean & Nancy were the only senior management staff in the company for over 20yrs and as such they viewed their staff as an extended family and always helped them when they could. Over the years Sean has helped numerous members in society, his charitable heart has led him to helping past staff members, children with medical issues and even assisting a scholarship winner. Sean’s superpower is the gift of gab being able to find a way through most situations. His son Corey showed an interest in joining the business and as such has been the Managing Director since 2011 which ushered in a new style and modernization of the operations. Corey wanted to also modernize the fleet and as such Calypso Cat a powered catamaran was purchased in 2018, which can accommodate 50guests. In January 2020, the latest and newest edition to the fleet arrived Go Tango a modern double deck catamaran with 2 freshwater pools & a slide off the second deck. This catamaran is the only one of its kind in the Southern Caribbean and has a capacity of 160 guests. These new additions have not only modernized our fleet and company, but it has set us apart from our competition.

Since then, Sea Spray Cruises has accompanied Saint Lucia on a long and extraordinary journey: years which have gone by fast, years in which the world has evolved and experienced momentous transformations in the tourism industry. The future of Sea Spray Cruises is bright with the hopes of modernizing and diversifying the fleet even more. We are proud of our rich history and look forward to a strong future. For our 30th Anniversary we are taking a look back at some of the historic milestones our company has been involved. To celebrate we count down the days to our big 3 0 by sharing a unique story everyday of gratitude. We plan on hosting a media day on one of our boats as well as a beach cleanup date with our staff and some fun activities.

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