jd950
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- I just don't log dives
I never seem to have times to write detailed trip reports like those I enjoy reading from others, so I thought I would make an extra effort to get something written before too much time passes. I will try to download some pictures later.
My wife and I and our two sons returned about 10 days ago from our most recent trip to Curacao. Excluding the two days spent getting there and back, we were on Curacao for 7 days. We stayed again at All West apartments and as before, enjoyed our apartment. The apartments are very nice, basic lodging with few frills other than good diving access, but that is what we want on a dive trip. I don't need fancy soap baskets, mini-bars or tv. On the other hand, a microwave would have been nice and they really should stock a few more basics like extra toilet paper, salt, pepper, sugar, etc. We will be back. It is great to be able to grab a tank and walk down the steps to the sea. My son and I spent several hours on night dives out back, just messing around taking pictures.
We ate breakfast every day in our apartment, had lunch there a couple times and dinner in the apartment a few times. That was very convenient especially on the days we were doing night dives out back. We also had great pizza, a burger or two and brownies at Sunshine's place a couple of times, ate once at Jaanchies and once at the Kura Hulanda Lodge, which was very nice and even the wine was pretty good. No complaints about any of our meals. We had all kinds of plans to go to other places but just never got around to it this time.
We saw a lot of evidence of break-ins to cars/trucks, and heard that the problem seems to be on the increase lately. One place we went had two piles of window glass they were cleaning up and when we went by the next day, another pile had appeared from a new victim. We followed our usual practice of leaving nothing of value in the truck and leaving it unlocked and oftne the windows down, so we had no problems. I figured if shirts, sandals, water bottles and so on were still there when we returned, that was great and if not, so be it. There isn't much else a tourist can do, and I guess it is just an unfortunate part of shore diving in the Caribbean? I suppose one nice thing about Curacao is that there are a lot of dive sites with relatively secure parking areas. If the petty theft thing upsets someone too much, they could perhaps still dive Curacao by limiting dives to places like Porto Mari, Cas Abou, Habitat, and I am sure there are many others. I suppose the Dive Bus would be another solution.
We dove at Playa Kalki, behind the apartment, Porto Mari, Varsenbai, Playa Lagun, Cas Abou, the Habitat house reef and Watamula. I may be forgetting one or two others, but we averaged three dives a day, with 4 dives on a few days. We went to Playa Largu but it was pretty windy and choppy that day. We had already done two dives, so we decided to head back to Westpunt, relax for a bit, have an early dinner and do a night dive instead. I love the flexibility of shore diving.
We enjoy going to places where we can do a dive and then have a leisurely lunch during a surface interval before doing a second dive. Although the food and the mango smoothie were quite good at Porto Mari, I don't think we will plan on having lunch at Cas Abou again. The food was so-so. I have to say, Porto Mari is a wonderful spot. The diving is very nice, the beach is beautiful, and as I already said, it is a fine place to have lunch or a snack. I had a spicy chicken sandwich on ciabatta bread that was quite good. My only criticism is that the restrooms are adjacent to where you gear up and rinse gear and it can get a bit funky.
Water temps were consistently 80-81 degrees. The seas were very calm on the west end, and only slightly choppy as we went east, but nothing bad. There was very little current in most locations and none of significance anywhere. The shore entries were all very easy. Due to the fact one of my sons is pretty young as divers go, we often stick with easier dive sites.
For our whole trip, the visibility was bad. I don't know why. It looked to me like about 50-60 ft., maybe 70', but I doubt it. On one day I think it was much closer to 40'. It was actually bad enough that our group of four got separated and finished the dive as two buddy pairs instead of a single group. We often get separated a bit and then link up again, but not this time. It wasn't a problem, and is something we are always prepared for, but a bit unusual. Each day we hoped it would improve, but no such luck. On some of the deeper dives it was a bit better. Luckily, Watamula was a bit better, but still well under 100 ft.
Still, we had great dives. In addition to the usual suspects (spotted, goldentail and green morays, sharptail eels, spanish lobsters, trumpetfish, porcupinefish, several turtles, scorpionfish, lots of shrimp, etc.), we watched a very large hogfish for awhile and found an octopus, a flying gurnard, a leopard flat worm and a large batwing crab. I also saw what I think was a reverse color goldentail eel, pale yellow, almost cream colored, with scattered dark markings on it. Everyone but me saw spotted eagle ray off in the murkiness at Porto Mari. No frog fish or seahorses this time and as usual, we saw very few large fish. In fact it is funny that I was so impressed with a large hogfish that I would barely think about if I were diving Cozumel. I suspect this lack of larger fish is due to overfishing, but this is certainly not unique to Curacao. Maybe someone needs to introduce turkey farming to the island to reduce dependence on fish? Sorry, that's a different thread.
Other than our one boat dive to Watamula, we used Ocean Encounters/All West as a source for lead and air, so I don't have much to say about the dive op except that they were always nice to us when we stopped by or dove at Playa Kalki and the one boat dive was fine, with only five of us on the boat.
Overall, we had a great trip and look forward to returning. Next time we will try to get a little farther east on the island as well, as there are many dive sites we still want to get to.
My wife and I and our two sons returned about 10 days ago from our most recent trip to Curacao. Excluding the two days spent getting there and back, we were on Curacao for 7 days. We stayed again at All West apartments and as before, enjoyed our apartment. The apartments are very nice, basic lodging with few frills other than good diving access, but that is what we want on a dive trip. I don't need fancy soap baskets, mini-bars or tv. On the other hand, a microwave would have been nice and they really should stock a few more basics like extra toilet paper, salt, pepper, sugar, etc. We will be back. It is great to be able to grab a tank and walk down the steps to the sea. My son and I spent several hours on night dives out back, just messing around taking pictures.
We ate breakfast every day in our apartment, had lunch there a couple times and dinner in the apartment a few times. That was very convenient especially on the days we were doing night dives out back. We also had great pizza, a burger or two and brownies at Sunshine's place a couple of times, ate once at Jaanchies and once at the Kura Hulanda Lodge, which was very nice and even the wine was pretty good. No complaints about any of our meals. We had all kinds of plans to go to other places but just never got around to it this time.
We saw a lot of evidence of break-ins to cars/trucks, and heard that the problem seems to be on the increase lately. One place we went had two piles of window glass they were cleaning up and when we went by the next day, another pile had appeared from a new victim. We followed our usual practice of leaving nothing of value in the truck and leaving it unlocked and oftne the windows down, so we had no problems. I figured if shirts, sandals, water bottles and so on were still there when we returned, that was great and if not, so be it. There isn't much else a tourist can do, and I guess it is just an unfortunate part of shore diving in the Caribbean? I suppose one nice thing about Curacao is that there are a lot of dive sites with relatively secure parking areas. If the petty theft thing upsets someone too much, they could perhaps still dive Curacao by limiting dives to places like Porto Mari, Cas Abou, Habitat, and I am sure there are many others. I suppose the Dive Bus would be another solution.
We dove at Playa Kalki, behind the apartment, Porto Mari, Varsenbai, Playa Lagun, Cas Abou, the Habitat house reef and Watamula. I may be forgetting one or two others, but we averaged three dives a day, with 4 dives on a few days. We went to Playa Largu but it was pretty windy and choppy that day. We had already done two dives, so we decided to head back to Westpunt, relax for a bit, have an early dinner and do a night dive instead. I love the flexibility of shore diving.
We enjoy going to places where we can do a dive and then have a leisurely lunch during a surface interval before doing a second dive. Although the food and the mango smoothie were quite good at Porto Mari, I don't think we will plan on having lunch at Cas Abou again. The food was so-so. I have to say, Porto Mari is a wonderful spot. The diving is very nice, the beach is beautiful, and as I already said, it is a fine place to have lunch or a snack. I had a spicy chicken sandwich on ciabatta bread that was quite good. My only criticism is that the restrooms are adjacent to where you gear up and rinse gear and it can get a bit funky.
Water temps were consistently 80-81 degrees. The seas were very calm on the west end, and only slightly choppy as we went east, but nothing bad. There was very little current in most locations and none of significance anywhere. The shore entries were all very easy. Due to the fact one of my sons is pretty young as divers go, we often stick with easier dive sites.
For our whole trip, the visibility was bad. I don't know why. It looked to me like about 50-60 ft., maybe 70', but I doubt it. On one day I think it was much closer to 40'. It was actually bad enough that our group of four got separated and finished the dive as two buddy pairs instead of a single group. We often get separated a bit and then link up again, but not this time. It wasn't a problem, and is something we are always prepared for, but a bit unusual. Each day we hoped it would improve, but no such luck. On some of the deeper dives it was a bit better. Luckily, Watamula was a bit better, but still well under 100 ft.
Still, we had great dives. In addition to the usual suspects (spotted, goldentail and green morays, sharptail eels, spanish lobsters, trumpetfish, porcupinefish, several turtles, scorpionfish, lots of shrimp, etc.), we watched a very large hogfish for awhile and found an octopus, a flying gurnard, a leopard flat worm and a large batwing crab. I also saw what I think was a reverse color goldentail eel, pale yellow, almost cream colored, with scattered dark markings on it. Everyone but me saw spotted eagle ray off in the murkiness at Porto Mari. No frog fish or seahorses this time and as usual, we saw very few large fish. In fact it is funny that I was so impressed with a large hogfish that I would barely think about if I were diving Cozumel. I suspect this lack of larger fish is due to overfishing, but this is certainly not unique to Curacao. Maybe someone needs to introduce turkey farming to the island to reduce dependence on fish? Sorry, that's a different thread.
Other than our one boat dive to Watamula, we used Ocean Encounters/All West as a source for lead and air, so I don't have much to say about the dive op except that they were always nice to us when we stopped by or dove at Playa Kalki and the one boat dive was fine, with only five of us on the boat.
Overall, we had a great trip and look forward to returning. Next time we will try to get a little farther east on the island as well, as there are many dive sites we still want to get to.
Best turkey I've had was on Curacao..... Thanks Sunshine!
