tarponchik
Contributor
Mushroom Forrest is another boat dive well worth doing. They have a dive shop over there, and they do it as a drift dive. There is a nice cave in the end as you go south, do not miss it.
Trip Report March 2019 Curacao Trip Report
- Thread starter CosbySweater
- Start date
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
OP
CosbySweater
Contributor
We almost did a Mushroom Forrest trip but decided against it. My girlfriend isn't great on boats and the trip we we're thinking of going on was leaving from Lions Dive which is like a 90min+ ride (my instructor was leading a trip from there and we we're going to piggy back). I've heard plenty of good things about it though. It gives me reason to go back!
Damselfish
Contributor
During the time Go West diving was part of Ocean Encounters (officially Ocean Encounters West) they would drive all the people from Lion's Dive etc. out there and board a boat there, so the boat part of the trip was much shorter. If you have a rental car, you could do the same thing yourself - drive out there on a day they're doing the dive you want and spend the day. Do some shore dives while you're there. It's nice shore diving and has a good setup. Grab a bite to eat at the adjacent snack bar between dives, or even take a lunch the dive op has picnic tables.
Personally, if I was going to drive out there and had to pick one, I would do Watamula rather than Mushroom Forest. MF may be famous but IMO sort of resting on it's laurels. I was fortunate to dive it 20+ years ago and it had reason to be famous then. But between storms that toppled many or the giant mushrooms, and maybe diver load, it's one of those "not nearly what it used to be" things. By all means worth diving if you're staying around there anyway, but I don't think it's worth jumping through hoops to get to. If you had more people and could arrange a trip that hit both sites that would be nice.
tarponchik
Contributor
Agree, but this is true for the whole island.
When we did MF 2 years ago, we were the only divers on board, the rest were snorkelers.
We were in Curacao in Feb off a cruise ship for the day and did the Tugboat & Pier. There were a lot of divers there. The shop/shack there isn't really a dive shop, it's just a shack one of the locals uses to sell food and stuff. They do make the best chicken wings I've ever tasted on their old crappy bbq grill.
DebbieCane
New
irie1029
Contributor
I use Curious2Dive they pick up at cruise ship and their shop is at roundabout by TugBoat & Pier. But If possible (current) have them do the drift Directors Bay to Tugboat. You should never leave your car at Directors bay.
It was interesting for a shore dive. It was a regular dive for me but a discovery dive for my three grown up kids. The tugboat is in relatively shallow water (there were lots of snorkelers there). Swimming among the pier legs is kinda fun. There were not a lot of fish or other critters there. We booked our dive through scubacao.com. They picked us up at the port.
sgandza
Registered
Personally, I think Tugboat is great. The boat itself is not that interesting, but explore the area around it. Under the current pier had tons of life - including a seahorse. There is a small ridge that runs along from the current pier to the old pier that had more eels than I probably saw on the entire rest of my trip. I wouldn't use the ship - book with some of the other places that offer guided shore dives - Divebus I've heard is good.
Similar threads
