'Different' Curacao sites

[choiahoy]

My wife and I are heading to Curacao in November. We stopped there once in 2013 on our way to Bonaire, but only for four nights and five dives, so we're a little familiar with the island, but by no means experts.

I'd love some recommendations for 'different' dive sites on the island. By 'different' I mean a site that's a bit unlike the normal reef dives we'll find on the island. A good example would be something like Salt Pier or Small Wall on Bonaire. We'll be staying in the Soto area; Harry's Hole would roughly be our 'house reef'.

I know there are some interesting wrecks and car piles on the island. Anything like a jetty or a pinnacle? Or perhaps a particularly good muck site (I love filming macro critters).

Thanks in advance!

 

[scubadada]

My wife and I have only been to Curacao once. We stayed in Westpunt and dived with Go West. We enjoyed the diving, both boat and shore, very much. The house reef, Playa Kalki/Alice in Wonderland is on a par with Bari Reef. If we are to return, I would consider diving with Bas Harts to see some of the less dived sites BAS HARTS DIVING CURACAO

 

[diversteve]

Mushroom Forest is like nothing else you'll see - even on Curacao. It's actually not as fishy as some - our DM thought it was because small fish have nowhere to hide.

A nice dive is the Tugboat surprisingly. 1st dive go in off the south end of the beach and around the point - drop down the gradual slope and it becomes a pretty vertical wall - lots of eels. On the way back up the boat is off one of the pilings just off the beach so it's also your stop. 2nd dive could be under the pier there - not a lot of depth- maybe 40' -but a lot of growth. Sometimes the dive school there is open but you may want to bring tanks.

Maybe Trunk Bay/Varsenbaai. Ask the shop, there were seahorses a specific distance from the mooring ball around 40'. Head south for a while and you'll see a large pontoon boat wreck trailing down the reef around 80'. Head deeper (close to or exceeding rec limits) and you'll see the cars that were on it before they were dumped to become the 2nd Carpile site. They're probably in pretty sad shape now. On the way back to the dock, stay shallow along the beach. Turtles feed there in about 6-9' - one popped up next to me. Shop guy said they've been there for years.

Superior Producer is supposed to be a good wreck but it may be closed during Megapier reconstruction now.

There's some kind of radio tower wreckage site somewhere north of Bluebaai IIRC. Know nothing about it. Ocean Encounters lists it on their site.

There's also the Pierbaai Carpile site. Stop at the DiveBus office across the street and ask them how to find it.

Reliably many people name Watamula the best boat dive on the island. I think GoWest in Westpunt has it on their schedule plus if you want to make a day of it the above mentioned PK/AiW is their house reef.

 

[scubadada]

...Reliably many people name Watamula the best boat dive on the island. I think GoWest in Westpunt has it on their schedule plus if you want to make a day of it the above mentioned PK/AiW is their house reef.

Go West has Watamula on the AM boat schedule once per week. The week we were there, we did the morning boats with Go West and spent the afternoons shore diving. We actually got to dive Watamula twice, as one day there was a very brisk current and we did a drift dive that included Elvin's Plane Wreck and Watamula. We enjoyed the Go West boats very much. We were cut a fair amount of slack by the good DMs and had an average dive time of a little over 65 minutes.

As this was a trip for our 30th anniversary, we splurged and had a very nice oceanfront room at Lodge Kura Hulanda. There are many other fine accommodations in the West Punt and an increased number of restaurants.

 

[tkaelin]

Only been to CUR once this past Jan so no expert. Stayed at Allwest and dove with Gowest. I have not done it yet but looking to on our next trip is Mushroom Forest and hoping to dive the Blue Room as the second dive. From what I read Mushroom Forest is different in its coral formations and the Blue room is a cavern in the ironshore. We dove Watamula which was a wonderful dive but not sure it is "different" in the way you describe. The reef is heathy, fishy, lots of different coral formations and lots of soft corals in the shallows. The shore dive Alice in Wonderland aka Playa Kalki is an excellent shore dive with large coral formations providing a lot of area to explore. While I enjoy Bari Reef in Bon, I don't see them as being similar. Both are very nice dive but terrain is different, at least that is what I recall. Most of our diving was at the house reef at Allwest and Playa Kalki and enjoyed both. From where you are staying if you were driving up to Westpunt for a shore dive I would do Playa Kalki over the house reef at Allwest. Both reefs are nice, but I think Kalki is a bit more interesting.

 

[scubadada]

Only been to CUR once this past Jan so no expert. Stayed at Allwest and dove with Gowest. I have not done it yet but looking to on our next trip is Mushroom Forest and hoping to dive the Blue Room as the second dive. From what I read Mushroom Forest is different in its coral formations and the Blue room is a cavern in the ironshore. We dove Watamula which was a wonderful dive but not sure it is "different" in the way you describe. The reef is heathy, fishy, lots of different coral formations and lots of soft corals in the shallows. The shore dive Alice in Wonderland aka Playa Kalki is an excellent shore dive with large coral formations providing a lot of area to explore. While I enjoy Bari Reef in Bon, I don't see them as being similar. Both are very nice dive but terrain is different, at least that is what I recall. Most of our diving was at the house reef at Allwest and Playa Kalki and enjoyed both. From where you are staying if you were driving up to Westpunt for a shore dive I would do Playa Kalki over the house reef at Allwest. Both reefs are nice, but I think Kalki is a bit more interesting.

Mushroom Forest is a perfectly good dive, interesting coral formations, much of the coral not in the best of shape. I found many of the other dive sites to have considerably more fish and other sea life along with more color and diversity.

The Blue Room is not really a dive unto itself. We free dived it twice during surface intervals from other sites. It was quite beautiful, a huge school of Glassy Sweepers.

I didn't say Playa Kalki was similar to Bari Reef, I said it was on a par with it, a very high quality house reef shore dive that you enjoy diving numerous times, day and night

 

[Damselfish]

Mushroom Forest isn't what it used to be many years ago - it really was an expanse of giant mushroom shaped coral heads and pretty amazing to see. (Also wicked easy to get lost.) I think a storm toppled many of the big "mushrooms", and perhaps diver pressure hasn't helped. So it's an ok enough dive, and different from other sites, but not a signature dive worth going out of your way for anymore.

 

[tkaelin]

Thanks for the heads up on diving Mushroom Forest and the Blue Room.

 

[choiahoy]

Thanks all. This is exactly the kind of info I was hoping for.

We dove Mushroom and Blue Room last trip, and I remember them being pretty good dives. I'm debating on trying Watamula this trip, but mainly we like the independence of shore diving.

Tugboat and Trunk Bay/Varsenbaai sound great. And after reading further, it looks like the place we rented is right on Playa Hundu, not Harry's Hole.

We were thinking of renting tanks from Lagun. For anyone who knows the island well, is there a dive shop closer (Google says Lagun is 18 minutes away)?

 

[diversteve]

Discpver Diving is in Lagun - at the turn-off to the beach/divesite. They even have a truck-bed height tank pickup which is pretty convenient. Discoverdiving & Restaurant -> Home

Nothing in Santa Martha that I'm aware of and since I believe you're going to have to drive north thru there from your property, Lagun is probably the closest.

To the south the nearest two shops are Cas Abao Watersports or Porto Mari Sports - just not sure how you'd get there w/o going back to the main road then back in - most access is thru Sint Wiljbrodus to the south. I think they'd be farther.