Curacao Trip Report - Sunset Waters/Sunset Divers

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

WaterKtn

Contributor
Messages
79
Reaction score
0
Location
DC Metro
# of dives
200 - 499
Got back from Curacao a week ago and I'm still mourning the loss of what someone aptly called "paradise." We stayed with a group for a week at Sunset Waters and dove with Sunset Divers. The trip was spectacular.

Sunset Waters is a divers paradise (www.sunsetwaters.com). It's smaller than huge big name resorts so its quiet for surface intervals and down time. Its not the Marriot, but very comfy. We had a great view from our room right onto the ocean - I saw a school of tarpon one day from the balcony - the water was so clear I could identify them by the black tails even from that far away. We had the all inclusive plan and the food was great and when they found out I and another diver were a vegetarians, there were special veggie meals made for us every day. All the servers and staff were friendly, courteous and went out of their way to make us as comfortable as possible.


The dive operation is fantastic (www.sunsetdiver.com). My dive buddy and I are AOW and Nitrox certified, but didn't have a lot of dives under our belts (going straight from OW to the advanced classes). The divemasters did a great job making us feel comfortable and safe. The dives were described on another site as the perfect beginner's first trip and it really was, without being dull for the advanced diver (at least IMHO). We went on 2 boat dives a day with unlimited shore diving. We got the Nitrox add on for the week and did 22 dives - even more than our instructor! The boat trips were 25 minutes at the most and less than 10 at the least. We visited the famous Mushroom Forest and it was awesome. The boats were spacious and they did not crowd them at all, adding the second boat if demand was great enough. They had water and lemonade and fruit for surface intervals. The water was between 79 and 83 degrees for every dive - I wore a skin after the first dive. It rained a couple days as it was the rainy season there, but the weather was not a factor at all. The vis was described by a veteran diver as around 60 feet (I have no visual spacial skills :) ) Special mentions are the sea turtles, the rays, the yellowtail morays, reticulate moray, goldspotted eel, black and white, yellow and black and orange seahorses... the list goes on...

Thanks Lynne, Scuba Steve, Mike the Scuba Dude, Kurt, Rick and all the others at Sunset Divers for a making our trip unforgetable!
 
waterktn,
thank you for your trip report.

i took my family to sunset in 2004,we too had a very good time.
when you made the house reef dive, did you find the statue of the lady?

my wife cannot eat anything with wheat and the staff could not have been more accommodating.

we will one day return to sunsetwaters for some great diving and relaxing.
regards,
 
Waterktn,
Thanks for the report. We're booked at SW for March 1st and I can't wait to get there. This sounds like a VERY relaxing dive vacation. Good news also about the veggie issue. My son has booked the AOW course and it sounds like they'll be most accomodating. I think this is the type of place that warrants many return trips!
Neil
 
I'm going to Curacao and was thinking of staying at Habitat Curacao Resort. Has anyone ever stayed there?

Any recommended "must-dive" sites?

Is there much to do on the island?

Melissa
 
bigz,
my son earned his ow from sunset divers while we were there.
i felt they had a very safe and detailed program.
i'm sure your family will have a splendid holiday.
when you do go, look for the statue of the lady on the house reef.

sirensong,
mushroom forest is a unique dive site.

regards,
 
sirensong:
I'm going to Curacao and was thinking of staying at Habitat Curacao Resort. Has anyone ever stayed there?

Any recommended "must-dive" sites?

Is there much to do on the island?

Melissa
I've stayed at Habitat 3 times, I think, and once at Lions Dive. There is a decent amount of shopping downtown, and it is a pretty scenic downtown to explore. There are some casinos and lots of restaurant choices. There is the national park and some other interesting scenery on the island, and lots of little beaches scattered around. The aquarium is small but interesting. There's the Curacao Liquor tour/tasting. You may able to do a boat tour of the inner harbor, as I recall it was only Wednesdays and we never managed to do it but would probably be very interesting if it still runs. Great view from Fort Nassau, though I wasn't impressed by the food in that restaurant - I'd sit outside and have a drink. Probably other stuff I'm forgetting.

Don't have the log handy, but Mushroom Forest and Superior Producer are pretty famous ones. The cavern near Mushroom Forest is also nice if they will go there. Seldom is good. Most of the other sites run together in my head but the west end where Habitat dives is mostly all pretty good.
 
woooooooo~
sounds awesome~~

we're planning to go to the marriott in march! wahooo!
ne1 know how the shore diving is at the marriott??

thanks!

-dan
 
:frosty:
Damselfish:
I've stayed at Habitat 3 times, I think, and once at Lions Dive. Don't have the log handy, but Mushroom Forest and Superior Producer are pretty famous ones. The cavern near Mushroom Forest is also nice if they will go there. Seldom is good. Most of the other sites run together in my head but the west end where Habitat dives is mostly all pretty good.


Thanks for all the info! If you stayed at Habitat 3 times, then it must be good! What's the shore diving like at the resort? Any good? What about water temps? I'm not a big fan of the cold. :frosty:
 
actually 4 now that I think about it. It's a great place to shore dive and very easy at the hotel, nice setup just grab your stuff from a locker and a tank and go. (One drawback is its 2 floors of stairs down so if you want to dive there and also drive elsewhere to shoredive it would be a pain to hump your gear, but I just boat dive and shore dive from there so I don't care.) Easy swim to the drop off with scattered corals heads and critters to find along the way. We once counted 7 scorpionfish on a single little coralhead near the dock. There's a line out to the reef and down the dropoff (similar to most places in Bonaire) so it's easy to find your way back. I think water's always been 80-84.
 
I'll be staying at Sunset Waters from February 3rd through the 11th and this was good to read. I've seen a few negative reviews popping up on Trip Advisor recently, but most of the reviews are still overwhelmingly positive.

It sounds like exactly what my friends and I are looking for...good diving, good food, and a nice beach with lots of sun and warmth. I hope we all enjoy it as much as you did. :D

Stan
New Hampshire
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom