Curacao Trip Report - June 20th 2009

[Curacao Sunshine]

There are a few ways to get in west end dives if you stay in town.
The fun way would be to get on the Dive Bus.
Now that Jay and his wife are comfortable shore diving, there are least a dozen shore dive sites west of the airport and then a dive in both directions. You can get air at 6 locations. For nondivers the beaches are beautiful especially at Porto Marie and Cas Abou. You can get food at Habitat, PM, CA, Sunset Waters, Lagun, Playa Kalki, Playa Forti and a few places on the drive between. Non divers can drop the divers off and explore Christoffel Park or Shete Boca/Boca Tabla. There is no shopping but they can also get a massage at PM, CA or The Lodge Kura Hulanda at Playa Kalki. Ocean Encounters West has a dive shop adjacent to the Lodge and has an afternoon one tank boat at 1PM. It is a 25 minute drive to Porto Marie and a 40 minute drive to Westpunt from the Marriott but worth the drive. Even if it's just to see how the scenery changes.
I haven't been to most of the east end shore dives but the topography is different than in the west including some wall dives.
Congratulations on mastering shore diving, now on to explore more sites.
Windham, as far as places to stay; we're partial to the West End (my own opinion since we moved here). All West Apartments are in Westpunt with air on premise and stairs to the bay. The dive resorts out west are Habitat and Sunset Waters but there are dive ops near any lodging, even ours here in Westpunt. If you are coming mainly to dive, I'd suggest the west end. If you like casinos, night life and fancier restaurants, you might be happier in town. Almost all of the hotels have dive ops on premise and of course the Dive Bus picks up at them all.
Lake diver, I'm sorry you were disappointed in your trip. Long travel days are exhausting and the diving in Roatan is pretty special, we loved the diving there. But I personally think there is more for nondivers to do on Curacao.
More Cowbells, there is another option for you to research. Fly to PR. Then Insel Air flies to (I think I've got this right....) St. Martin for a short stop and to Curacao. The major problem is the luggage weight restrictions. I think 44 pounds per bag, 2 bag max. Again check on that. It's pretty tight with dive gear. But.... I don't need a measuring cup this year. Tubeless tires for the boys though..... see you when you return.

 

[UnderwaterBumbleBee]

Interesting to see how people's experiences can differ. I've been to Roatan and Curacao and I'd say the exact opposite about the diving in Roatan. I liked Roatan but was disappointed with the diving. I just got back from the Bahamas and I kept thinking "it's not Curacao". On our Watamula dive in Curacao, I couldn't even focus on one spot because there were so many fish. I didn't get to do any dives on the south side but the west side (especially near Westpunt) was fantastic.

By the way Sunshine...hubby might be taking me to Curacao for my B-day this year!

 

[Curacao Sunshine]

How nice of you to give him a great excuse. Watamula - Mr. Bee was my dive buddy, your camera yours Come stay with us! Or at least closer to Westpunt.
Fishes, Sunsh

 

[jaybob217]

@imalakediver
"Is there a reason you didn't go to other sites with the Dive Bus?"

The Dive Bus had mostly classes that week and weren't filling up any shore dives to other parts of the island. They like to have at least 4 (if I remember correctly - Suzy or Mark, correct me if I'm wrong here) before they take a trip out. NOW, with that said, they did offer to suggest many other shore locations and there's no doubt if we really wanted to go they would have done everything to make arrangements to get us there.

As I mentioned, it was my wife and I's first time diving on our own and honestly, we just really enjoyed their house reef. Tons of fish! We've dove Kauai, St. Croix, MX, and have always been with groups and just wanted to take our time and do our own thing. We like to just sit down in the sand around a coral head and watch. We got exactly what we wanted out of the dives.

We did tour the rest of the island one day, and honestly I didn't find the driving that difficult. Actually I thought it was pretty easy compared to St. Croix, but then you drive on the opposite side of the road in St. Croix.

@skiwindham
"Where would you stay the next time you dive in Curacao? Did you notice any appealing dive resorts?"

Lion's Dive, that's where we would stay. Great beach and the resort and Hemingway restaurant was really nice.

We considered the Westpunt area to for the diving, but after driving out there... it really didn't seem like there was anything out there besides that. We don't dive the entire time and enjoy relaxing and shopping also so being close to Willemstad was nice. We did go to the Shete Boca/Boca park which was pretty interesting.

If (when) we go back, we'll would probably stay at Lion's Dive and sign up for some shore dives with The Dive Bus. Lion's Dive has a great setup. We checked out their diving operation (ocean encounters), boats, shop, etc. and it looked top notch. Large boats docked right there at Lions Dive. However, we like to sort of do our own thing... while a boat dive would be cool maybe, we found the shore dives and personal attention at the Dive Bus more appealing. That's just us though.

We have some other places on our list yet so... honestly, we're looking for "the place" we would like to live someday. ;-)

 

[imalakediver]

Sunshine,

The 1:30 PM boat at OE west would have been great, but it didn't go out while we were there, except one trip with some snorkelers. Maybe there weren't enough divers signed up. I believe the 8:30AM two tank trip went out every day, but there was no way I could get out there that early. A morning sightseeing trip out west would be nice, arriving in time for the afternoon dive. The non-divers could hang out on the beach during the dive, then everyone gets a good meal at a local hangout and heads back east.

It must have been a slow week. I didn't see many divers on the OE east boats running past during the week either. I did a dive with them one afternoon and it was only two other divers and five snorkelers on the trip, and I think they pick up from three different hotels.

When you are traveling with non-divers, a one tank boat trip is about all you can fit into the schedule. A two tank trip plus driving time kills most of a day. Even without driving, when the boat comes back at 12:30, by the time you stow your gear and clean up, you are half way through the afternoon, and the non-divers are getting restless because they missed the tour that left at 1PM or spent too much time on the beach. Shore diving from the resort is easy to fit into the schedule, but after a couple days on the same reef, you want to try another site. At the resorts where the dive shop is not operated by the resort, you have to have all the tanks and gear back by closing, which means no diving after 3PM.

I guess I should be glad I got to dive at all and not complain about getting dragged through the tourist stops with the non-divers. They have the same complaint about scheduling around a diver.

 

[LeeParrish]

imalakediver, it sounds like you were limited by your fellow travellers, lodging selection, and location more than anything else.

Be careful assuming that a boat won't let you dive if all they have are snorkelers signed up. Go plead and beg a little and see if they have a divemaster who wants to get wet. I dove one afternoon with Caribbean Sea Sports (out of the Marriot) and all they had were about half a dozen snorkelers signed up before I got there. They sent out a divemaster for me anyway. Most of the divemasters are happy to get in the water and will take any excuse to go out. They may not send the boat out for one person, but if the boats going out anyway...

I went with my non-diving family in May and we stayed at the Marriott, which in was a fairly nice location west of the city, but not too far away. We rented a car and it was nice to be able to have that extra flexibility. And it meant the non-diving family could go into town and shop in the mornings when I was out diving. And that kept them busy for the first couple mornings. I have made it a point over the years to make it well known that shopping isn't my favorite activity. The other thing I do is since I can't dive the last day there anyway, I make sure we do a big family activity day then. Otherwise we just plan around me being missing in the mornings. Most mornings I was up and out of the room before the rest of the crew even woke up, and would get back right after lunch and then we would do family activities the rest of they day.

It was very quiet the week we were there also, but I liked that things were not busy, I ended up doing 9 dives, with 7 of them with just me and the divemaster. Having a personal guide is nothing to complain about, especially since I didn't have a dive partner with me anyway. I did have one trip cancelled from Cas Abao to the Mushroom Forest since the other diver didn't show up for it. The dive shop there did a great job making up for it by showing me around their local reef. And in the end it worked out that I did 3 dives that day instead of 2, and the family enjoyed the beach the whole time while I was out. And since we were all there together I could take a lunch break with the family between the dives.

As for the flight length, I can feel for you, but you had it easy . I also live in Oklahoma (Tulsa), and we had to spend the night in Miami on the way down, and Dallas on the way back adding two extra nights in hotels on our 5 night trip. Not that it's anyones fault, it's just the way flight scheduled worked out, of course after we booked the tickets. But nobody to blame for that other than possibly the airlines.

But opinions and experiences do differ for the same places. And it's a good thing, otherwise we'd all be crowded into one "perfect dive site" and it wouldn't be much fun .

 

[LeeParrish]

Visibility could have been better and a lack of color reminded me of the lakes in Oklahoma (and we have "car piles" here too). Everything seemed to be a rusty brown.

Okay, I couldn't let you off on this one. You have to admit that the worst day of visibility in Curacao is better than you've even seen in any Oklahoma or Arkansas lake... I know, I live here too, and after hearing people get all excited that Beaver Lake has "awesome 30 foot visibility" (which is very unusual), I have to say that 60+ we had in Curacao was refreshing. And while we do have car piles here, they have about 6 species of fish living in them, but of course you can't see them all due to the low visibility. At least in Curacao there is a little more to look at than here. I saw more species of fish and other creatures on Pierbaai in the first 5 minutes than I have in all my dives here combined. But then I'm a fish nut, so I get into that kind of thing .

 

[promocop]

What are you people diving in? Shorties or 3mms? Going in a month

 

[Curacao Sunshine]

I'm surprised OEW wouldn't take you out as a single diver in the PM, especially to Watamula, just 5 minutes away usually they will or maybe from what you wrote you came on a busy snorkel day. I know there are a multitude of dive destinations but if you return to Curacao, let me know and I'll help with your dive schedule or dry land activities for the others. Often there is "something else" happening on the island; a quilt exhibit, a fashion show, who knows, but something else to keep them occupied and happy. I agree with Lee, mixed groups need to come to a happy medium. That's why I suggest diving/snorkeling at the Tug boat or Lagun or trips to Porto Marie, Cas Abou or Playa Kalki where others can relax on a nice beach and then everyone have lunch together.
Other divers, especially those coming to Westpunt, ask OEW directly to go diving even if you are the only diver. Most of the time you'll be accommodated unless it's on a Wednesday or Saturday and there are a lot of snorkelers scheduled. But.... thankfully Alice In Wonderland in front of OEW/Lodge is an awesome shore dive. Single divers? Again, I see people buddying up at dive shops all the time so don't think you necessarily have to only do boat dives. Of course that is a good way to hook up with other shore divers. Which will eat up a lot less time than most scheduled boat dives when worrying about getting back to your waiting onshore group.
I'm surprised they had enough to do in Roatan. We went for 3 dives, sometimes 4 a day and even took 3 days off to kayak in the mountains of Honduras. Other than that, it seems like Curacao has a lot more to offer non divers. We also enjoyed Dominica but we like to bike and hike which is in abundance there, a lush beautiful country.

 

[Curacao Sunshine]

Start with what you wear in California.
I only went diving on vacations to the Caribbean, never in NH. OK, yes I was a wuss. At first I used a 1 mil jacket. After a year, I went on a 2 tank boat dive and on the second dive I was chilled. I now wear my 3 mil. On vaca, David only wore his swim shorts, he now wears a 5 mil. If you only wear a shorty in CA, it will be sufficient here. Cold? Bring your 3 mil. Your other option is to rent something warmer if needed.