Curacao Recommendations - What not to miss?

[alashas]

UBB,

I’ve posted several times on Scubaboard of some of the 25 dives we did during our visit to Curacao in April, and you can see lengthier descriptions of some of the sites. (By the way, fisheye, wow! some of the best uw shots I’ve ever seen, esp. the macro! Thanks, I’ve forwarded your photos to my dive buddies).

You have an excellent dive site right there at Habitat that I am sure you will dive more than once. There is a helpful line that guides you down the reef. Here are photos from my dive there: http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4756731_uZsdX#281917607_pEvLo

I’m sure you will also want to dive the house reef at Sunset Waters, where you will have a good chance of seeing their resident seahorse. Photos are here:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4756731_uZsdX#297798307_82yQ7

Other excellent shore dives are Playa Lagun, which also has a dive shop and is also an excellent place to do a night dive on Thursday, followed by a barbeque at Bahia Apartments just above the beach:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4889242_82oPQ#291658332_JuFZ4

Cas Abou is an excellent beach with a dive shop, restaurant, and even a masseuse. For $6, Sunshine and I rented tanks, and the DM took us in boat and dropped us off passed the point, where we had an outstanding dive back to the shore, seeing at least a half dozen eels in the small coral patches in the sand in 8’ of water or so. Drive toward the end of the parking lot in order to get close to the dive shop:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4889242_82oPQ#297481656_9eNzo

Porto Marie is another one of the beautiful beaches on Curacao with a dive shop where you can rent tanks, and has a restaurant. It also has a double reef, but you can see plenty on the first reef if you do not want to dive that deep:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4787789_zVac6#284286687_mXj6u

It is also the site of a successful artificial reef in the shallows:

Playa Kalki is the location of the excellent dive shop http://www.oceanencounterswest.com/ and one of the best shore dives on Curacao, “Alice in Wonderland.” This is also an excellent reef for a night dive:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4772645_PJAgQ#290744913_K6zGk

Playa Piscado “Fisherman’s Bay” is the location of http://www.allwestcuracao.com/ and is an easy shore dive. You’ll see the Neptune statue there, as well as 2 seahorses:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4772645_PJAgQ#294022487_iJSgf

In Willemstad, we did an excellent shore dive with http://www.the-dive-bus.com/ that started at their house reef and went out to the car pile and then back. There is a restaurant beside their dive shop:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/5012863_b6p4s#300751383_RiQtK

The Tug Boat, sitting in only 15’ of water, is an excellent macro dive. I wrote a post about here, featuring the 2 juvenile spotted drums: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/abc-islands/236677-saw-some-gorgeous-babes-tugboat-curacao.html
We dove it on a Monday afternoon and there were only 2 snorkelers there. There is a dive shop which also rents some water toys:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/5012863_b6p4s#305576642_KKKVv

We did the 2 shore dives just mentioned after doing the “dolphin dive” with http://www.oceanencounters.com/dolphin_boat_dives.html This boat dive on Monday and Friday mornings takes 10 dives to a reef near the Dolphin Academy. Two dolphins were released to swim out of the large area of the Curacao Sea Aquarium where they normally stay, and swim freely among the divers along the reef in about 14’ of water. We were given a thorough briefing before the boat left the dock about how to interact with the dolphins, and were accompanied on the dive by a DM, a trainer, and a videographer. Even though in a few of the photos in looks like the trainer may be giving them food, that was not the case. The dolphins rub their snouts against the palm of his hands, and they seem to enjoy being petted by the divers. We spent 45 mins in the water with the dolphins and the $200 is refunded if the dolphins chose not to come out of the Sea Aquarium. There is some controversy about dolphin dives, to be sure, but I, personally, was humbled by the opportunity to spend nearly an hour with such beautiful creatures:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4707747_hAShV#278519735_zNqXX

There are some dive sites that can only be reached by boat, and we had an outstanding experience doing 9 boat dives with http://www.oceanencounterswest.com/ My dive buddy did his AOW training with Andreas Kaufmann, and Andreas is an excellent instructor. The entire staff of OEW was great to work with. They are intelligent, outgoing, and passionate about diving. We give them our highest recommendation. I can only post 16 photos in a post on Scubaboard, and have posted photos from some of the boat dive sites on other ScubaBoard posts, so I will not have a photo for every site listed, but I will include a link to the photos.

Watamula Wow! This is the most extraordinary dive I have ever done; in fact, we dove it twice. I wrote a post here: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ab...ao-dive-site-watamula-one-best-caribbean.html

Fed by the nutrient rich current at the western tip of the island, this reef has been aptly described as “coral on steroids.” Personally, I think it is quite a bit more spectacular than Mushroom Forest:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4875158_Dx5YH#290592824_L2PU5

Having said that, I would keep Mushroom Forest and the nearby “Blue Cave” on a short list of “must do” dives. I wrote a post here:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ab...room-forest-blue-cave-highly-recommended.html
Photos here:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4902045_5JMMr#292877414_L9Tsp

And, I would have “Rediho City” on a list of must do boat dives, too. This nutrient rich site has a variety of healthy corals and fish and is an excellent site for both macro and wide angle shots:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4902045_5JMMr#292880934_s27Ub

It is one of the sites where you really feel as though you are “swimming in an aquarium:”

Santa Cruz is another one of the beautiful sites in the western part of the island with a lot of colorful coral and sea life. I saw 6 flamingo tongues, garden eels, and also a mantis shrimp. I took more macro shots here than any other dive:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4902045_5JMMr#293892841_dCX6b

Paradise was one of only a few sites where I saw a stingray, and this one was tailess!
Excellent visibility and again, lots of vibrant coral and a variety of reef fish:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4902045_5JMMr#294368726_NJpyq

We also dove Lagun as a boat dive, but we were on a mooring further out than where we dove Lagun as a shore dive. Outgoing Tuki is an excellent DM, and has great vision. He found mantis shrimp, eels, and an octopus hidden in a piece of coral. http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4889242_82oPQ#291647736_4qPLw

When I edited the photo of the octopus, I discovered an eel in the coral as well! He almost looks as though he was trying to get in the photo:

I have written a post here about “Kortape Point,” where Andreas showed us a frogfish in around 50’ of water:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/abc-islands/234433-curacao-frogfish-kortape-point.html

Photos:
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4772645_PJAgQ#295341205_YxPuT

I have written a post about the “Elvin’s Plane Wreck” site in Westpunt: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ab...wreck-other-west-end-curacao-information.html

Photos here: http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4875158_Dx5YH#289719582_znxCC


I've also mentioned the great time we had staying at http://www.curacaosunshine.com/ and dining there a half dozen times. David and Sunshine are fabulous cooks, excellent divers, and great hosts: http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/gallery/4704684_Uv3jB#278276407_7nYf2

You will love Curacao diving! alashas http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/

 

[dogenia]

Man I bow to Alashas, he throws out a new pic every time he posts.

Alashas tell me next time yr in town, I'm interested in classes.

Don

 

[alashas]

Thanks, Don, but I am still learning, too!

For persons interested in underwater photography, the best thing I have ever done in order to help me understand uw photography was schedule 2 half day tutorials with Cathy Church’s staff on Grand Cayman, followed by a 2 hour workshop the second day on how to edit uw photos. I have been taking uw photos for 4 yrs and never quite knew what to do with them other than save them in albums on my computer. Cathy Church’s competent staff taught me the basics about photography, the nuances of uw photography, and what to do with my photos once I have taken them.

I also learned the value of a wide angle lens, which increases the area by around 30 to 35% - really helpful when those fish will not sit still! As you can see by this interior shot inside the Tugboat at Curacao, it just captures so much more than what the regular camera lens can

I also discovered the value of a strobe. The color red fades around 8 to 10’ (depth and/or distance) and a strobe momentarily lights up a reef so that I see it as it actually is and not with its color faded, such as these 2 filefish over some colorful coral at “Vanishing Rock” off Cooper Island in the BVI:

Photo editing software (I use Adobe Photo Elements 5) lets me adjust the color level and the light, as well as crop and enlarge, which I did with each of the filefish:

I also learned that the best uw shots are those in which you can get within 3’ of an object. Cathy’s mantra is “get closer, get closer!” You can see why. I saw a large stand of pillar coral at Vanish Rock and this attempt to photograph the stand from around 5’ away. I do not get the depth of the stand of coral, but the trade off is more color, although you can see the color fade to the greenish tint we get in so many uw shots in the coral toward the back of the stand

I got within 3’ or so of the pillar coral here and you can see the richer color

Having said all of that, sometimes you get lucky and get a nice shot at distance, especially if there is a lot of sunlight overheard

or if you are in fairly shallow water, such as the pier in front of the Dive Bus

Cathy also advises taking uw shots of objects by trying to get beside an object, rather than from shooting down at objects below us. If at all possible, the ideal scenario is to see if there is a patch of sand in front of a piece of coral so that you can stand on the sand in front of the coral and look for things to take photographs of in and on the coral. Obviously, you do not stand on any coral whatsoever. If you cannot find a place like that to take photos, then take photographs of objects in front of you, rather than below you, if possible, such as this one at “Wall to Wall,” Great Dog, Virgin Gorda

Perhaps the most important thing I learned from Cathy is to take my time! Settle down, do not try to take photographs of everything I see at a dive site. Perhaps only swim ½ or a ¼ of the site, use my eyes to look the site over and get a sense of the site, take time to explore a particular area, look for the little things such as this grunt and butterflies

So, after the first morning of my 2 morning tutorial with Cathy Church, I decided I needed a better camera set up if I wanted to try to take better photographs. I ended up getting an early birthday and Christmas present and purchased a unit Cathy recommends very highly Olympus SP 350 in Oly housing with wide angle lens and Sea&Sea YS-110 TTL strobe. It is a very nice reasonably compact unit that looks like this

The long arm on the strobe lets me arrange the light from just about any angle and hopefully get a good shot. The camera has been discontinued but Cathy sells refurbished units and she also has excellent advice about other cameras here

I am going out of town tomorrow for two weeks and look forward to continuing our conversation when I get back.

Sincerely, honeymoon2 http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/

 

[dogenia]

Slobber, slobber, slurp.

 

[UnderwaterBumbleBee]

Alright, I'm really excited to go now. Only a couple more days! Thanks for all the responses and photos, the coral and fish life look incredible! I think I'm going to go into photo convulsions on this trip with all the underwater and land shots.

I ABSOLUTELY want to do the car pile Suzy. How far of a swim is it?

Nesher - We are probably going to be in Bonaire for New Years! Don't tell my husband that though. I'll be sure to take a few photos by the way.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Alashas great shots. I particularly liked the shots of the tug... brings back fond memories of my visit in 97 I only snorkeled it then. The shot of the dolphin is brilliant.
'scratches head" hmm how can I get there..... it's such a long way from OZ..... (wasn't as far from Canada)

 

[StephM]

Your pictures are so incredible Alashas! I can barely wait - 4 days until we're at Sunshine & David's apartment and then doing our AOW with OEW... I hope we get to dive with the Dive Bus on the other end of the island too. There's so much to do and see!!

I can't wait to meet you all down there

Steph

 

[TheDiveBus]

I ABSOLUTELY want to do the car pile Suzy. How far of a swim is it?


Hey U/W Bumblebee

It's about 10 mins shallow, beautiful underwater swim to the Car Pile - much easier and nicer than doing it on the surface )

It'll be our pleasure to brief you on the easy way to do it when you get out here.

Looking forward to meeting you!
Suzy