Westpunt Curacao
Curacao Jan 10-12
Accommodations: All West Apartments
Dive Shop: Go West
ACCOMMODATIONS:
The apartment we had at All West was one bedroom with a couple full size beds and a futon in the living area. The bathroom had standard fixtures and a shower stall. Everything was clean. We added a truck rental as part of the package. The patio overlooks the shore below and has a view of the sunset. The kitchen area has a full sized refrigerator and stove. Pretty much everything you need for stove top cooking is there, not so much for the oven. They also have gas grills outside. We ate most of our meals in but did venture out for tasty Lionfish dinner at Sol Food. It’s quite a long haul to the supermarket, almost all the way back to the airport. Your best bet is to stock up on supplies on the way there after you’re picked up at the airport. WIFI at our apartment at the end of the building was weak but useable. There was AC and a safe, no TV. A few mosquitos were around in the evening. The apartments have a locked equipment storage room including rinse tanks with lots of hangers and bins for whatever equipment you want to store/dry and a stockpile of tanks. This room seems well maintained by Go West. Although we did not do much in the way of shore diving other than the house reef the setup seems ideal to take advantage of what hearsay suggests are some excellent opportunities.
DIVE OPERATOR:
I opted for mostly boat dives with my recently certified daughter (one previous ocean dive) and with a relatively short stay. Go West was operating one boat at this time, the 38 ft Sea Lion (no head). Minimal smallish tub for cameras. (They put another on board for me when there were two of us with bigger camera kit.) Separate tub for masks. Go West has storage space for gear and hanging racks at the shop also. Prerequisite to diving from the boat an orientation dive is required but is self-conducted, you could do it the evening before at the All West, we did ours off the dock (Playa Kalki) early in the morning, before the boat took off. All the sites we visited on our three days of boat diving were about 20 minutes or less from the dock. Most of the dives were a little over 60 minutes . The first day our divemaster was Noortje who gave a well done concise briefing, jumped in to check the current then climbed back aboard to help the five of us in. We all tagged along with her while she pointed out various (mostly macro) stuff at Scooter and Santa Cruz, both wall dives. Noortje served water, fruit and sweet rolls between dives. Gear changes are handled by the diver. We relaxed that afternoon then headed back to the shop for a night dive from the dock with Robert the other DM. Not spectacular, but my buddies first. Robert did a great job with the newbie, I hung back and watched the phosphorescence from their fins and took photos of stuff Robert pointed out to my buddy. The next day was just Robert and the two of us diving from the boat. There was a mild current at these two sites, Watamula and Kortape Point and we took them as slow drift dives. A Hawksbill joined us at one point. Robert did a well done briefing and we did the usual giant stride off the back. That afternoon after lunch in the apartment we grabbed a couple tanks, geared up and headed down the 30 or so steps to for a shore dive at Playa Piskado. 50 yards or so out to the reef among the fishing boat moorings starts a sloping wall. A nice size green turtle came by to check out the cages under the fishing boats. Against a very mild current we swam north to Neptune’s Statue and a bit more then headed back. The last day we did Mushroom Forest and Lagun with Noortje, a couple of more level patch reef type dives with small to medium sized coral heads. Seven or eight on the boat this trip.
DIVE CONDITIONS:
Our dives were generally down to 50 or 60 feet. Visibility was not great, maybe 50 ft most places. Temperature in the water was around 80º. I was a bit cold in a 3 mil so added a vest and hood, after which I was quite comfortable. This being the rainy season there were a couple fairly strong 45 minute thundershowers most days causing a fair amount of runoff. The DM also noted there was a bit more surge than usual. Not much use for wide angle lens between the lack of visibility and the absence of anything large to photograph. Large fish were conspicuously absent. There were some pretty big schools of Brown Chromis and Creole Wrasse enjoying all the suspended particles but that was about it for schooling fish. I did have a lot of fun playing with my new macro lens in all the giant anemones with attending spotted cleaning shrimp and very shy banded clinging crab. Overall both soft and hard coral were in relatively good shape though I was a little disappointed at the Mushroom Forest. Not a terrible profusion of alga like some places in the Caribbean. Most of the usual small suspects were around and not to many Lionfish obvious. (There seems to be a pretty active Lionfish hunting crew in diving areas) My favorite sites were Kortape Point and Lagun. I’m looking forward to coming back some day when the visibility is better in late spring early summer (they say) and I have a few more days to explore the shore diving. The staff at the All West apartments was helpful as needed. Very happy with the staff and divemasters at Go West. This added up to be a fairly low cost trip.
