The Marriott diveop is
Caribbean Sea Sports:
Curacao is famous for its excellent shore diving and our own house reef at Caribbean Sea Sports is no exception, just gear up and walk right in to see a excellent reef full of tropical fish! If you are unsure of diving on your own, or have no dive buddy we can provide an experienced Dive master to guide you. Alternatively you can simply rent your tanks and equipment from us and explore the island by yourself. We are happy to give you our expert advice on the best spots and sell Drive and Dive maps in our shop to help you find your way.
Doesn't sound like it will be a problem...Get the map, there's a noticeable lack of street signs west of town. Every site we dove (except Lagun) required a short drive in off the main road. Most weren't marked especially well. Sometimes there's a "
red" rock. Mostly they seemed to be larger than the small yellow ones used on Bonaire. And set further back off the road.
What's different about Curacao vs. Bonaire is that there's often an on-site dive operator who will collect a small usage fee (a few guilders) for using their facilities, dive dock etc. I even had a beach operator want me to pay him to use a plastic chair late one afternoon at Lagun. (yeah right - he closed 2 minutes later)
At some sites you don't have access without going past/thru the operator - at others it's a public beach.
Places we paid some sort of usage or rental fee:
The Tugboat
Varsenbaai
Habitat (Nos Kas)
Playa Lagun
Porto Mari (I think - we brought tanks over from Habitat)
Sunset Waters (now closed/demolished)
Playa Kalki (Ocean Encounters West)
If you dive Playa Jeremi, bring everything, there's no facilities there at all. You may be the only person there also.
Except for Tugboat, all the above sites are west of the Marriott.
At Habitat and OEWest they have a locker room, showers etc. - nice facilities. Most of the above sites at least had a shower - most a dive dock also to get you a little closer to the reef. And some sort of snack bar.
Except for Habitat ($25 all day - unltd. tanks) we mostly brought ours with. One consideration about bringing tanks - at Habitat it's down 3 flights of stairs to the dive-dock. At OEWest it's about 15-20 uneven rock stairs down from the parking lot. Just seemed easier to rent on-site.