Right now I'm looking at Saba, Curacao, and St Eustatius. I want to dive a lot, 3 tanks a day plus a few night dives. We are both experienced divers. Night life or shopping are not important and accomondations need not be 5 Star. All inclusive would be nice as long as shorts, T-shirt, and wet hair are acceptable.
Is the diving in Curacao mostly shore diving or boat diving? Are the dive sites marked and easy to find like they were in Bonaire? How difficult is it to enter the water, such as having to carry gear down steep hills, or entering water with rough surf over rocks and coral? (2 bad knees). Any suggestions?
Curacao is Bonaire diving but easier entries. They're on the same reef so you see similar stuff. Both boat/shore options are available but in a week of diving 3-4 dives/day we only did one boat dive. There's really only 3-4 top dives that aren't shore accessible, Superior Producer, Mushroom Forest, Watamula and a couple others I can't recall. Watamula is one of the best dives on the West End. On our only boat dive, the captain talked us out of Mushroom Forest as he said the fishlife there is low due to the overwhelming # of stacked corals. And most diveops only let you snorkel in the Blue Cave between dives.
The biggest difference is that most of the west side (better) dives are on small coves that break the ironshore cliffs so the reef can be a decent swim out in places. We almost always did it on the surface. And just about every divesite has facilities onsite and you're required to pay a few guilders to dive there. Most have tanks/wts. also and some have full diveops onsite.
A couple of the better divesites on the West End are resorts on the cliffs overlooking the water with the dive docks/lockers etc. at water level. At Habitat, this means three vertical flights of stairs down from the resort level with about a 50' walk out to the end of the divedock. The reef is fairly close there and starts at about 40', but the better part is slightly to the east. We really liked the Habitat reef, even though we stayed closer to town, we went there twice.
At Sunset Waters we drove down to the diveshop as the resort is 100's of yards back up the hill. If the road is chained, ask them to let you down there. Otherwise it's a long carry down some steps that need work. Even the beach bar has a drink trolley. The dive there is off a small cove through a manmade breakwater. It's an easy wade in with boots and they have a small setup area right on the beach (racks/tent etc) as Sunset Divers is about 100yds. back towards the boat channel - no diving there. But all their tanks etc. are there.
Ocean Encounters West at Playa Kalki is similar, Lodge Kura Hulanda is above with some stone steps down to their facility/water level. It's a great dive also.
There's also some diveops located on named divesites, Varsenbaai, Playa Lagun and Porto Marie all have regular dive facilities. You can bring your own tanks to Varsenbaai (do this, cleanliness was an issue there) and Playa Lagun. I liked Varsenbaai, in one dive we saw s a big pontoon boat at 80', seahorses at the site marker in 40' and turtles feeding in 8' closer inshore. And about 100 squid just off the divedock.
Habitat is fairly close to Porto Marie so an option is to get tanks at Habitat's pickup on the south end of their parking lot. If you buy the all-day pass ($28?) you could easily do both dives twice. Porto Marie also has a diveop onsite. It's the classic double reef like you see in south Bonaire.
Discover Dive at Playa Lagun sits just off the road. They have a truck bed height dock for tank pickup, it's really convenient. Closer to town, Hooks Hut in Piscadera Bay has their tank pickup within about 30' of their parking lot. Both rent tanks for offsite use.
Of all the west end dives, Playa Jeremi was the only one we did with no faciliities, not even a restroom. It wasn't the best dive either. But easy access, broad concrete steps down to the beach. If you dive it, try looking in the nooks/crannies just off the west point of the cove, I found it more interesting than the reef. I think 2 of the 3 "Gnip" sites are pretty remote also but we didn't get there.
Lost Anchor would not be a site for "bad knees". It's several vertical flights of stairs down a cliff face to the water. Sunset Waters does it as a boat dive, it's a good drift. Supposed to be seahorses but we didn't find them.
The only far east dive we did was Tugboat, it's an easy beach entry with a short swim to the boat. The better part of that dive is the wall around the point. Also since the boat is in 20' of water, there's a good chance a cruise snorkel boat will drop 100 people on your heads mid-morning - it happened to my buddies.
It seemed to me that generally speaking most of the eastern dives we drove by were flat - at least in/around Willemsted. There's more beach and almost no ironshore. On the west end at some locations you're as much as 100' above the water. But everywhere has good access.
fwiw, Sunset Waters looked far more tired than Habitat. Neither one would be much over 3 stars - I'm being kind. Food service was equally slow at both places but better at Habitat. If you want a beach, that would be Sunset Waters, they have a big one. Habitat's is all rock/ironshore. I chased flounders just off their "beach" during an SI, I wouldn't wade in there without boots. They don't even consider it a beach, there's a sundeck 20' from the water.
A pricier alternative is Lodge Kura Hulanda in West Punt, it's one of the leading small hotels in the world. Nice suites, located right on Playa Kalki/Alice in Wonderland - one of the best dives we did. Both ways. And there's a nice newer Ocean Encounters West facilitiy onsite. But it's a 45min. drive back to Willemsted/civilization except for about 3-4 local Westpunt restaurants. And one local market nearby, otherwise stop at Centrum Market in Piscadera on your way out of town.
We were told to lock the cars and hide valuables anywhere we went. By more than one local. Most of the resorts have gated security also. Not that there's a lot of crime but it's a poor island. A friend's wife who is a native told us they're 150M in debt.
hth, this is all fairly current we were there May 2007.
