Curacao 1995
The first trip we made after completing our PADI Open Water course was to the beautiful island Curacao. Because we had the opportunity to stay in the appartment of a friend we had more money to spend on our stay and we decided to go there for almost 5 weeks!
You can see in the picture at the left that Curacao is part of the three Dutch Antilles also called the ABC islands. Curacao being the largest in the middle with Klein Curacao in the direction of Bonaire which is uninhabited. I’m writing this report in september 2001 and have to do a lot by what I can recollect from it. A lot is gone but some of the adventures will stay in my mind forever. The first dive on the Tugboat, the dive on the Superior Producer and of course our trip to Klein Curacao with Dennis and Inet.
Our appartment is somewhere in Montana and after arrival we rent a Suzuki Jeep to take us where we want to go. A supermarket is around the corner and so is an ATM so we are all set and ready to go.
After visiting some of the beaches we decide to buy a visitor pass for the beach at the Lions Dive which is protected from a huge surf and is very clean.
The Dives during these 2 weeks
The number in front of the dives correspond with the numbers in my logbook.
8 – Tug Boat
Because this is the first dive in tropical waters we decide to do it from the boat. We can use a little guidance from a Divemaster. The tug boat is on the menu today and this is very nice because this little wreck is not accessible from the mainland. The trip on the boat is very short and to us everything is happening very fast. There are some groups I think but we
newbies are nervous and Racquel keeps telling me we don’t want to go any deeper then the 18 meters we are supposed to go being only OW divers. After a couple of seconds I pad her on the shoulder and point to my depth gage, it reads 24 meters. Racquel gives me the OK signal and starts descending…strange creatures women.
The dive is pretty good but ends in panic. The tugboat is in 15ft of water so I decide to get the simple UW-camera to try to take a few pictures. She will stay at the spot because our boat is only anchored a few yards away. I get the camera and swim back to the tug boat around a large piece of concrete that is used to tie the boat to. When I get back there is NO Racquel. My heartbeat goes up and I think that this just isn’t possible. After all we have learned about the buddy system the first time diving alone I’m causing my girlfriend to die in a horrible accident and it is all my fault. I look inside the boat and swim around it and forget to take a picture. Then I swim back to the boat where Racquel is at the surface smiling at me. My God! She tells me her bottle came loose from the BCD and she decided to follow me to the boat. Unfortunately she swam around the other side of the concrete block . A very nice first dive after being rewarded with our certification.
Depth: 25.5 meters
Divetime: 42 minutes
9 – Porto St. Marie
A first dive with just the two of us. We’ve rented our stuff at Aqua Divers because we had some internet contact with Arjen. We just learned recently that he and his brother 
Gerben no longer run the place.
To us diving these sites is heaven. It is no comparison with cold murky Dutch water.The fish and the colors of the coral are excellent. We are not enjoying it at the most because we are still very occupied with the techniques of our diving and our “buddy system”. Which means we look at each other every 5 seconds and give each other at least every 15 seconds the OK-signal…Hey we are newbies remember, and after the experiences of our first dive here not something to laugh about. We finish this dive with 800 psi!
Depth: 20 meters
Divetime: 49 minutes
10 – Public Beach
The dive on the carpile at the public beach is a nice dive. We see a large crab and of course a pile of cars. Our computer gives strange readings but probably this is only because we are not used to it 
Depth: 25.9 meters (that’s more like it!)
Divetime: 35 minutes
11 – Rif St. Marie
A dive from the beach. Entry in the logbook “we see a lot of big fish!” I have no idea what we saw and no recollection of this dive what so ever but they must have been big!
Depth: 17.7 meters
Divetime: 58 minutes
12 – Seaquarium
A easy dive in front of the Seaquarium with excellent vizz and again lots of fish.
Depth: 18.5 meters
Divetime: 48 minutes
13 – Daaibooi Beach
The visibility is poor this time and we have to snorkel quite a while to get to the rope on which you can descent and start your dive. Racquel is having trouble with her right ear and has to see a docter. The ear infection causes a lot of pain and results in a couple of days without diving.
Depth: 16.9 meters
Divetime: 41 minutes
14 – Klein Curacao
We had to rise at 6 a.m. to sail with the Insulinde to Klein Curacao. The trip on the boat was great and I stayed on the bow of the boat as long as possible until my stomach really got upset and I decided to go midship. The two dives we made were both driftdives. We didn’t have any experience with this but luckily we had some great buddies with a lot of experience in our opinion. They dropped us close to the reef’s edge with a small rubber boat but still it took us quite some time and air to reach the drop-off. Drifting along the reef is great. With no loss of energy you glide along the reef and there is still plenty of time to watch everything. Due to the lack of divers and fishing boats the fish here are bigger. After we’ve surfaced we are still a long ways from the Insulinde and they don’t notice us so we trie to swim towards the boat. After some 15 minutes we get the feeling that we don’t get any closer so we try to shout to get their attention. Nothing worked. Finally when we are starting to get a little nervous a rubber boat picks us up and drops us close to the Insulinde. After we climbed aboard we notice the whistle on our BCD’s ….
Depth: 25.5 meters
Divetime: 38 minutes
15 – Klein Curacao
The second dive of the day after a gorgeous meal aboard the ship took us again along the reef with less current than the first dive here. Although we saw some turttles from the ship we didn’t see any of them while diving. The coral is better here and we had a very nice dive. I wonder if the Insulinde is still in business?
16 – Superior Producer (wreck)
One of the highlights of this vacation was the dive on the wreck of the Superior Producer. The wreck is in some 115ft of water and very easy to approach when there is no current. We decide to do this dive with the guidance of Arjen from Aqua Diving. I think we are a group of eight when we dive down to see the outlines of the wreck come into focus when we get deeper. To us this is a very deep dive because it is only our 16th dive so far and officially we are not allowed to go any deeper than 18 meters. We all enter the wreck to enter the wheelhouse and unfortunately we have a short bottom time. So we ascend and when we look back we see small streams of bubbles come out of the wheelhouse. An image I will always remember. On the reef we see 2 barracudas but I cannot remember anything else.
Depth: 34 meters
Divetime: 35 minutes
17 – Playa Kalki
We are a little spoiled and when we both get the feeling that we have seen it all a huge moray eel grinns at use while we are doing our safety stop at 5 meters. The beast is at least 5 ft in length and is out in the open. It’s mouth is close to a pepsi can so we can compare it with this and have an idea about its size. On the way back to the beach we see a spiny lobster so after all there is something to talk about. The stories we tell at Aqua Dive must be very boring to the guys there. To us everything is great, the smallest encounter a great adventure and we want to share this with everybody. But to those die-hard divers nothing seems to be interesting anymore. Been there, seen it, done it….Do they still enjoy it after 5000 dives?
Depth: 19.7 meters
Divetime: 30 minutes
18 – Playa Jeremi
“Normal dive with not much to see. In shallow water we find a seahorse.”
This is all there is in my logbook. Now (2001) writing this I realise how special a seahorse can be to people. I have seen a few in my years but I still think they are the most boring creatures in the sea. Of course you may disagree!
Depth: 20.3 meters
Divetime: 34 minutes
19 – Animal Encounter (seaquarium)
This is a dive where we get to feed some fish, eagle rays and sharks. We had one of the guys video-ing us and after this adventure we had some laughs about Racquel’s frightfull dive. You can see on the video that her breathing is 3 times as fast as mine and that see doesn’t like it at all. After one of the rays gives here a little kiss on her finger (her middle finger!) she almost leaves the water afraid the blood will attract the sharks. I have the time of my live as you can see in the picture. These animals are great and so gentile but they are of course attracted by the fish that you hide in the palm of your hand. The sharks are also very impressive but I liked the rays better.
Depth: 3.4 meters
Divetime: 43 minutes
20 – Porto Marie(nightdive)
This is something I never thought would be possible. ScuBart doing a nightdive. Ever since my time on Ibiza in 1978 I have found the sea very dark and very threatening and I could not imagine to ever go diving in it at night. But the guys at Aqua Diving convince us that there is nothing scary about it and that they will come along with us. So I look at Racquel who seems to think “if you go, I go” and we decide to do this.
It turns out to be one of the best dives. There is a little bit of moon so it is not as dark as I expect it to be. The plankton in the sea lightens up when you swirl your hand in it something we have seen in Holland as well. The group of divers is scattered and all the flaslights underwater gets us a little confused. When one of the lights moves in a frenzy we think one of the divers is in trouble so we swim towards the light. There is no problem at all he is just busy blowing rings of air to the surface. I’m a little mad because he scared the shit out of me.
We return to the beach and end this dive with a BBQ on a very romantic spot. This was the last dive of our Curacao trip.
We had a great time in our appartment and enjoyed the beach at the Seaquarium. We had good food and not much problems besides the ear infection Racquel had for a couple of days. But being here for 4 1/2 weeks we had plenty of time to do other things beside diving.
We had some great saturday nights at the Landhuis Brievengat with salsa and merengue dancing. We also met a colleague from a friend of ours in one of the restaurants at De Boogjes (The Arches). He was very interested in Racquel as I remember him but she thought he was creapy….funny how you remember things after 6 years.
All in all Curacao was nice but compared to other locations we visited since it was not outstanding and we will probably not return. If it has to be one of the Dutch Antilles I prefer Bonaire which figures because I went there twice already as you can read in the other trip reports. If you want any specific information on Curacao I’ll be glad to answer your questions. Don’t hesitate to e-mail.
Keep on diving,
ScuBart
