mikerault
Contributor
Just got back from a great week in Curacao. Susan and I spent a week at the Marriott Resort and it was wonderful, excellent service, great room and wonderful resturants.
While we were there I got my AOW cert and Susan did her Scuba Diver. All in all did 8 dives (5 for the cert and 3 for fun).
I did the Navigation, Night, Deep, Photography and Wreck dives for the AOW (I have Buoyancy already and did the SSI Nitrox earlier this year).
We did the Nav, Deep and Photography at Pierbaal dive site and the wreck at Carpile and the Night at a combo of the Pierball and Carpile. For fun we did a pierbaal, a house reef at the Marriott and a wreck dive on the Superior Producer.
The night dive was great and we saw several eels, lobster, crab, squid and 2 octopus.
On my final dive in Curacao I did the Superior Producer wreck. It was a great dive. We did a shore entry (which had about 2-3 foot waves and a iron stone base, a bit rough on the old feet) once we were out about 25 yards, was easy to put on fins, we went out another 10 yards and submerged.
Visibilty was 100+ feet water temp 83 degrees. We followed the slope down to 100 feet and headed west, the stern of the SP became visible shortly and we followed the port side up to the bow, we asceneded to deck level and entered the cargo hold. We swam the cargo hold back to the stern and then exited up to the wheel house. The DM (Andy) and I and one other diver swam through the pilot house and then down the port side to the sand bottom. We then swam back to the entry point against the current (it was light, but noticable). We saw many small fish and one Tarpon that was about 4-5 feet long.
The exit was worse than the entry as I had to re-don my boots (I have full foot fins and they won't fit over the boots) I ended up getting some small cuts on my left foot but nothing serious and jaming my right down between some rocks with a real big wave, it was a bit tender but is feeling ok now.
The wreck lies in 100 feet of water, upright and is about 200 feet long. It was a great wrap up dive for Curacao. I used Nitrox.
The wreck it self happend in 1978 near Christmas. It was carrying blue jeans and liquor. The Captain had just exited the harbor area when they began to take on significant water, he stayed onboard and moved the ship to its current location before it had to be abandoned and it sank. Needless to say the locals had their fill of salt washed jeans and liquor for a while!
I also dove the Carpile (actually a junk pile from when they did a big cleanup on the island several years ago, dozens of old cars, a 20 foot boat, a large truck, a bunch of girders and pipes and the barge they used to move it all out there) pretty neat.
I highly recommend The Dive Bus with Suzie and Mark and Andy.
Mike
While we were there I got my AOW cert and Susan did her Scuba Diver. All in all did 8 dives (5 for the cert and 3 for fun).
I did the Navigation, Night, Deep, Photography and Wreck dives for the AOW (I have Buoyancy already and did the SSI Nitrox earlier this year).
We did the Nav, Deep and Photography at Pierbaal dive site and the wreck at Carpile and the Night at a combo of the Pierball and Carpile. For fun we did a pierbaal, a house reef at the Marriott and a wreck dive on the Superior Producer.
The night dive was great and we saw several eels, lobster, crab, squid and 2 octopus.
On my final dive in Curacao I did the Superior Producer wreck. It was a great dive. We did a shore entry (which had about 2-3 foot waves and a iron stone base, a bit rough on the old feet) once we were out about 25 yards, was easy to put on fins, we went out another 10 yards and submerged.
Visibilty was 100+ feet water temp 83 degrees. We followed the slope down to 100 feet and headed west, the stern of the SP became visible shortly and we followed the port side up to the bow, we asceneded to deck level and entered the cargo hold. We swam the cargo hold back to the stern and then exited up to the wheel house. The DM (Andy) and I and one other diver swam through the pilot house and then down the port side to the sand bottom. We then swam back to the entry point against the current (it was light, but noticable). We saw many small fish and one Tarpon that was about 4-5 feet long.
The exit was worse than the entry as I had to re-don my boots (I have full foot fins and they won't fit over the boots) I ended up getting some small cuts on my left foot but nothing serious and jaming my right down between some rocks with a real big wave, it was a bit tender but is feeling ok now.
The wreck lies in 100 feet of water, upright and is about 200 feet long. It was a great wrap up dive for Curacao. I used Nitrox.
The wreck it self happend in 1978 near Christmas. It was carrying blue jeans and liquor. The Captain had just exited the harbor area when they began to take on significant water, he stayed onboard and moved the ship to its current location before it had to be abandoned and it sank. Needless to say the locals had their fill of salt washed jeans and liquor for a while!
I also dove the Carpile (actually a junk pile from when they did a big cleanup on the island several years ago, dozens of old cars, a 20 foot boat, a large truck, a bunch of girders and pipes and the barge they used to move it all out there) pretty neat.
I highly recommend The Dive Bus with Suzie and Mark and Andy.
Mike
