American Airlines, Sunset Waters Beach Resort.
Air travel should be uneventful and ours was. We had to change planes in Miami and that all went smoothly. On the way home, we were delayed for an hour leaving Curacao, so our layover in Miami was two and a half hours instead of three and a half. The lineup at Immigration, or whatever the Americans call it, was reasonable short, about 20 minutes, so that was no big deal.
The resort was great. We got upgraded to a suite and it was very comfortable. It had a television with that all important video connection so that I could cull my photos at the end of each day. The television also had a decent channel selection so if you wanted to watch it, you could.
The food was also very good. Sometimes it was a buffet, sometimes you ordered from a menu. I didn't have a single bad meal. Lot's of good ones, but no bad ones.
I really liked the dive shop. What set them apart from most others is the extent to which they let the divers figure things out for themselves. Singles were not forced to buddy up. You could dive with the divemaster or do your own thing. You could pick your own depth. All they asked was that you limit your boat dives to 60 minutes. Considering that there was also unlimited shore diving, that was hardly a hardship.
The dive shop practiced valet diving to a certain extent. They would bring your BC and regulator to the boat for you and set it up on a tank. If you wanted, they would swap tanks for you between dives. They would also bring your BC and reg back to the gear locker for you. The rest of your gear, including weights was your responsiblity. They had laundry baskets we could use for carrying this gear around. They worked quite well.
The dive sites were very nice. Most of them started anywhere from 10 to 30 ft and then sloped off to deeper than I wanted to dive. The slope was steep enough to use for navigation but shallow enough to spread out the group. If someone was deeper than you, you would not be in their bubbles, something that often happens on wall dives. Also since the top of the reef was so shallow, blue water safety stops were rare.
The water was crystal clear and 83 F. The corals and sponges were in good shape. There were lots of small fish but very few big ones. There were also a lot of shrimp, both Red Banded Coral Shrimp and Peterson Cleaning Shrimp. I also saw a slipper lobster. There was a seahorse on the hotel's house reef.
Speaking of the house reef, it was very nice. In fact, if you wanted to save a few bucks, you could just get the shore diving package and have a wonderful time diving. One thing though, if you have a choice, bring open heel fins and booties. There were pebbles on the bottom as you waded out. And crabs. And bristle worms.
On one dive site the top of the reef was all sand. There was a small eagle ray rooting around in that sand, as eagle rays are wont to do. Then it was time to go, so it lifted itself out of the sand and started the slow graceful flapping of his wings to swim away. In formation, right underneath, and keeping up, were three smooth trunkfish. They weren't slowly flapping any wings, but they were keeping up. I know, you had to be there to appreciate it.
We dove the same site later in the week. On this occasion, shortly after I jumped into the water, a couple of blue headed wrasses started taking nips at the string that secures the filter to my camera. It may be significant to mention that this string was actually bungie cord that Lee Bell gave me earlier this year, assuring me that it was genuine DIR diving kit.
Sunshine Curacao is a rec.scubette who recently joined our newsgroup. She lives in Curacao and we were able to get together for a shore dive. Afterwards we sat down, had a drink, and enjoyed some delightful repartee. Sunshine is a doll. She is very pretty and exceptionally cheerful. If you need a reason to visit Curacao, she's it. Or if you are going there anywhere, look her up. It's always nice to meet fellow newsgroupers in person.
Curacao has slightly different electricity than North America, but the plugs are the same. There are some things that might not work properly, but battery chargers are fine.
There was a booth in the airport for a departure tax, but that was included in the price of our ticket. I don't know all the details, but it's worth checking out if you are going there for more than a week.
| Trip Dates2007-09-15 to 2007-09-22 | Trip Report Index |