Guilt Trip: Return to Curaçao
It was only April (Diving In the Dutch Caribbean – April ’22) when Jani and I flew to the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao to escape New England weather and take our PADI Advanced Open Water scuba diving course. June found me back on the same coral island, ready for more dives and trying to earn more certifications. Unfortunately, Jani’s many spring/summer community projects precluded her from joining me. Bitten by “the diving bug”, I made the trip alone, feeling terribly guilty but determined to get the most out of the week away from home.
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Some of the specialty dives we made in April left us one or two dives short of certification for these categories: Deep Diver, Peak Performance Buoyancy and Underwater Navigator. Returning to Curaçao allowed me to complete these three specialties (5 dives) and learn some other aspects of scuba diving as well. In the short week I was there, I also went on 4 night dives, a certification dive with a full face mask and fulfilled the requirement for the 2-day for Emergency First Responder (EFR) and Rescue Diver courses. These last 2 certifications required taking a day off to study online documentation and passing exams prior to having to perform “rescues” on my 6’4″, 205-lb. instructor. These courses had to be given at a different resort about 40 minutes away, so I had very little free time apart from diving and driving.
If this sounds stressful, it wasn’t. I was grateful to be in a Caribbean paradise doing something I truly enjoy. It was engaging, but in a calm, restful way. I experienced my first night dives, which I loved, enjoyed diving to depths below 100′, spotted my first octopus (a revelation) and got to see more of the island than on our previous visit, including the capital city, Willemstad.
Since this was a return trip, I did not take as many photos, not wanting to be redundant. I did take shots of new places and things I missed the first time. Unfortunately, I did not have enough “fun dives” to take many underwater videos, something I will try to rectify in the future.
Return to Coral Divers for more Scuba
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We did not rent a car on our initial trip to Curaçao. At the time rentals were scarce and extremely expensive due to the pandemic. This trip, cars were more plentiful (and reasonably priced). I knew I would be dividing my time between two dive shops and had a real need to be mobile, so I rented a small car to make that possible.
Having wheels gave me a better perspective on the island and allowed me to visit the capital, Willemstad. Willemstad has a real European flavor, reflecting its Dutch history, which I tried to capture in the pictures below. Its bright colors and many street cafes were extremely welcoming.
Visiting Curaçao’s Capitol, Willemstad
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A 2-day Course & Night Dive at Blue Bay
As mentioned earlier, I spent some of my time at a second dive shop at Blue Bay Curaçao Golf & Beach Resort. It gave me a chance to experience a much larger, busier resort. It was reminiscent of our earlier trip to Jamaica, but without the reggae. While I prefer quieter more boutique-type accommodation (more personal), the diving opportunities were great and Blue Bay had the personnel who could teach me the two courses I wanted to take.
(I found it interesting that when I was “rescuing” my instructor, people who were on vacation would leaving their beach umbrellas and, sensing trouble, offer to help out with a rescue.)
The shop was so busy that customers were not getting placed on dives because of a limiting ratio of divers to divemasters. When I finished my course however, they offered me a place on a night dive that same evening. That dive turned out to be the highlight of the trip; the one where we spotted an octopus, a scorpionfish and a sea turtle. All of my dives to this point had been with just one other person (my instructor) but this dive introduced me to a lovely family who were just learning to dive and we had a great outing. This was also my final dive, a nice way to finish the trip.
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