A day on the Captain Morgan

Witch's tit
We went out on 28 Dec 2005, a beautiful day for sailing.
However, I could not contact them in 2011.

Capt Morgan is a 65 foot schooner with a deep draft and thick teak planking. She's quite beautiful and quite stable because of her size and weight. We sailed out of the lagoon on the 9:30 AM bridge opening and turned right along Simpson Bay Beach and around Beacon Hill past the end of the airport runway, ducking under incoming traffic. First mate Tiki served coffee and juice to get us started as we sailed by Maho and Mullet Beaches to Cupecoy. Note the construction and that The Cliff will tower over all the other structures. This is the most beach here since Hurricane Lenny took most of the sand away. The first shot is the eastern end of Cupecoy where three resorts have been built and two more are under construction. The next shot is of the western end where there are no visible buildings from this angle, but the Orient Express company has a couple over this rise, down on the lagoon and plans many more. Two other projects have carved up this last bit of undeveloped land on the coast and are trying to entice more people to put in villas or hotels.

Cupecoy Construction

Cupecoy Beach

We continued past Bay Long and La Samanna sailed by some fabulous private villas on the far end of bay Long and again on Plum Bay as Tiki plied us with a wonderful banette (slightly larger than a baguette) with sausage and Gouda cheese). At that point we rounded the NW corner of the island and saw the Bird Cliffs that dominate the shoreline. In a bit, Bay Rouge appeared followed by the ruins of the Belle Creole Hotel, Sandy Ground, and Marigot.

Captain Serge spots ...
... a big rock.

Well, actually we spotted this after we rounded the NW corner of the island. It's Creole Rock, just off the eastern end of Grand Case. It's part of a marine park and we went snorkeling to find sergeant majors, needlefish, trumpetfish, stoplight parrotfish, queen parrotfish, regular parrotfish (quite boring by comparison), lizardfish (a sand diver), wrasses, tangs, conch, and more.
That wasn't the best part however. First mate Tiki, who is Capt Serge's actual mate, prepared some mighty tasty ribs and chicken on the poop deck as we worked up our appetites. She also had managed some very nice scalloped potatoes and some salad.

We sailed back to Happy Bay, but the wind was kicking up some waves, which kicked up some sand, so we opted to continue back to Bay Long. In actuality, that wasn't much better for snorkeling, but we all got in the water and Tiki, the floating rum punch purveyor, kept us warm and lubricated.
We got back in about 5 PM after a lovely day on the water.