Curacao information needed

[snake]

We're 2 couples headed to Curacao in Nov. and will probably be staying at Breezes. The 2 ladies of the group love to dive and the 2 men are land lovers. I'm looking for any information or recommendations on the diving. They have been to Cozumel, Hawaii and Punta Cana in the last 3 years and have down a lot of boat diving. By what I read it seems to be a lot more shore diving in Curacao. One of the girls prefers no deeper than 80 feet. So any information would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks Snake

 

[smokey braden]

snake,
welcome to this board.
check out this web site and i'm sure they will answer your questions.
http://www.sunsetdiver.com/
drop us off a trip report upon your safe return.
regards,

 

[herman]

Welcome to the board.
I can't help now but I have a first trip to Curacao in July so I may have more info for you. You might want to check out this site www.shorediving.com

 

[Cheryl M.]

We're 2 couples headed to Curacao in Nov. and will probably be staying at Breezes. The 2 ladies of the group love to dive and the 2 men are land lovers. I'm looking for any information or recommendations on the diving. They have been to Cozumel, Hawaii and Punta Cana in the last 3 years and have down a lot of boat diving. By what I read it seems to be a lot more shore diving in Curacao. One of the girls prefers no deeper than 80 feet. So any information would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks Snake

Hi Snake, welcome.
My family and I stayed at Breezes and used their dive shop, as well as Toucan Diving, last January. We had a lovely vacation. There are good shore dives right off the pier at Breezes, as well as a lagoon and barrier reef right off the beach that's great for snorkeling for your non-divers. You can swim through breaks in the barrier, or around the edges, and see amazing see life just on the other side, or stay in the lagoon. I saw a good sized green moray in about 10 feet of water just off shore!
Tell your ladies to be sure to look for the seahorse in the soft coral on that shore dive.
Curacao has lots of good boat dives. Two that we did while there were Oswald's Drop-off, and Baracuda Point. Both are excellent dives in the 80 ' or above rage. Baracuda point has a wall, that when the current is strong is done as a drift dive,ala Cozumel.
Saw an eagle ray there in January, along with many other cool critters.Lot's of eels.
If you use the Breezes dive shop, say hello to Irving and Suzie from me. And have Irving show your wives his flip off the pier.
Feel free to PM me with any other questions about the resort or the diving. Have a great time.
Cheryl M.

 

[Moorman]

You definitely want to avoid the tower at Breezes near the Japanese restaurant (north side?) There is a night club down the beach nearby that plays VERY loud dance music until 4 am everynight. Our stay there was nice except for that.

 

[pigletfish]

My husband and I visited Curacao in January 2004. We stayed at the Hotel Kura Hulanda, rented a car, and dove with Silent Immersion. We did only one boat dive, on a daytrip out to Klein Curacao, which I do not recommend unless you just personally like day-long sailing trips. We also did a guided dive at the Superior Producer, which I do recommend, although sounds like it might not be the favorite of your two divers -- a little deep, and some current. The rest of our dives were shore dives done independently, and there are plenty of shallow, easy shore dives on Curacao. Some recommendations are Porto Mari, Playa Kalki, and the Tugboat. Have fun!

 

[soob71]

We're 2 couples headed to Curacao in Nov. and will probably be staying at Breezes. The 2 ladies of the group love to dive and the 2 men are land lovers. I'm looking for any information or recommendations on the diving. They have been to Cozumel, Hawaii and Punta Cana in the last 3 years and have down a lot of boat diving. By what I read it seems to be a lot more shore diving in Curacao. One of the girls prefers no deeper than 80 feet. So any information would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks Snake

My husband, 2 kids and I dove in Curacao a couple years ago, and found very nice dives in 50-60 feet of water at Lost Anchor, Diver's Leap, Barracuda Point and Saba. We stayed at the Lion's Dive & dove with them & they were fantastic, especially with the kids who were doing their open water certification dives.

 

[sharon]

On the west end of the island, must do shore dives, Playa Kalki, both directions, contact Allwest Dive in Westpunt they have their shop at beach/pier side there and you can get tanks from them, or carry your rental tanks/equipment down then up about 30 steep, skinny steps to the parking lot. They have a boat that usually does Watamula then mushroom forest. Watamula is a drift dive. Check out the statue of Neptune in front of allwest apts, he is in 30ft just out and west of the pier. We loved Porta Marie, Cas Abo and Vaersen Bay, it's aka police beach just west of the main town area. For the land lovers, have the girls shore dive at the private property along Landhuis San Juan, it's worth taking a lunch, couple tanks and spend the day. Small fee for entry, we were lucky got to tour the privately owned landhuis. There are so many other sites. Have fun.

 

[jbilicska]

Thanks for the shore diving website. It answers a lot of questions we had.

 

[emmagee]

We spent a week in Curacao last summer and stayed at the Marriott, which was fantastic. Neither my wife and I care for all inclusives, prefering to eat at various places around an island and get a better feel for it. I wish we had done an all inclusive here. Every meal we ate was wonderful and when we ventured out of the hotel we didn't have one meal that was worth eating.

But on to more important things, the diving. We dove almost every day with the dive shop tha was on premisis, Carribean Sea Sports, if memory serves, and they run a great operation. However, the best diving we did was the last dive of the trip when we went further west. I later spoke to someone who told me there was much better diving in the west end of the island and my father confirmed this when I spoke with him after we returned.........shold have done my homework!

We are talking about going back to Curaco as both my wife and I really enjoyed it, but she wants to stay at the Marriott again, whereas I would like to stay on the other end of the island. However, since she usually has TONS of Marriott points we will probably stay there, and hook up with an operator that concentrate on the west end.