Curacao Sept 13-20, 2008

We just returned from a wonderful trip to another one of the ABC  (A= Aruba, B=Bonaire, and C = Curacao) islands.  This was our first trip to Curacao!  Curacao is a small island slightly north of Venezuela.  We chose to go there because our trip took place during hurricane season, and the ABC islands are generally considered to be out of the hurricane belt.

We chose to stay at Lion’s Dive resort, as there was a reputable dive shop on site, and it was attached to the marine park.  Any resident of Lion’s Dive has free access to the marine park for your entire stay. The hotel, in our opinion, was adequate, although there were a few frustrations here and there.  When we first arrived they didn’t have a lock to our safe, as promised, and we couldn’t get it until after noon the next day, which was quite inconvenient to us. We also had a ton of mosquitoes floating around our balcony, and several slipped into our rooms for nightly visits!   I left with many more mosquito bites than I care to have had!   People we met from other hotels said they did not have issues with mosquitoes, so not sure if it was the position on the island, or what… but definitely if you go here, bring your DEET!    In general, however, the front desk staff was quite friendly and helpful.  The rooms were OK, but not quite what we noted on the website.  A little smaller, and a little more plain, but the oceanfront view was nice, and there was a refrigerator for our beverages. It was adequate for our needs.  You don’t really spend much time in the room anyway!!

Lunch and dinner was most excellent at both Nemo’s and Hemingway’s, the hotel’s two restaurants.  We ate a wonderful dinner at Nemo’s the first night we arrived, although the food there was pretty expensive.  We frequently visited Hemingway’s for their wonderful cheeseburgers, pizzas, and sandwiches for lunch.  The Nemo staff was excellent, but the staff at Hemingway’s, one of the two hotel’s (less expensive) restaurants varied a bit.  Many of them were friendly, but it seemed they were a little inconvenienced by some requests.  Prepare yourself for no split bills (as it plainly says on their menu).  There are no split bills, and there are no exceptions.  Our friends and ourselves (four of us on this trip) started sitting at different tables so we could easily keep our finances straight.  Oh, and just an aside, if you happen to be a ketchup freak like myself, buy a bottle at the nearby store, and take it to your meals, both on, and especially off the hotel grounds.  After two packets of ketchup at the local Kentucky fried chicken, you have to buy each packet!!    Breakfast at Nemo’s was just so-so, and I didn’t think worth the $13 and some cents price tag.  We only did that one day, and stuck to our granola bars and store bought stuff the rest of the week.  They also informed us they didn’t give change at Nemo’s for breakfast, so you lost even more money if you didn’t bring exact change (if you decided not to pay for the entire week ahead of time like we did).  After a few days, we rented a car, and hit a nearby grocery store, and the cost for meals came down significantly.

Lion’s Dive dive shop is Ocean Encounters.    It was a well equipped facility with very nice dive boats.  The staff there was very accommodating to the changing needs of our group.  Sherman was one of my favorite divemasters… he was very funny and fun to be around.  The diving was good.  BE SURE to go to the Mushroom Forest as that was one of the most, if not THE most  beautiful reef I’ve ever been to.  It’s mushroom after mushroom of coral reefs with so much marine life there.  It’s $40 extra as it’s about an hour boat ride each way, and lunch is provided, but it’s worth every penny.   After that far of a haul, I was disappointed we only did one dive there, and then a second at a nearby site.   The second one wasn’t nearly as good.  However, I imagine they do that so as to keep that reef as pristine as it currently is.  Also during our surface interval we snorkeled to the edge of the rocky shore, dove down, and came up in a cave with an air pocket where we could all see and breathe above the water.  That was pretty cool.  It was a much better than the average ‘sit around on the boat’ surface interval.

One difference between the dive shops at Bonaire and Curacao, was that Bonaire was much more structured and informative to divers when they got to the island.  I felt this way with both the shops I dove with there.  First day in Bonaire, you sit down with a dive shop member to pay your marine park fee, fill out your paperwork, and then go over dive procedures on the island.  In Curacao, there was no marine park fee (paid at the dive shop, anyway), and there was not much of an introduction.  We basically felt our way around and asked lots of questions along the way.  Being experienced divers that was no big deal.  For new divers, however, this would be a little more of a disconcerting way to get started.  Proper orientation is a lot more comforting than being thrown into your dive day, and figureing out your check-out dive, schedules, and procedures all on your own.

Sherry, Crystal, and myself also did the dolphin dive.  It was about a 30 minute open water dive with, in our case, two dolphins.  The dolphins, Annie and Tayla were both pregnant and preferred to spend a lot of time together, so they were both present on our dive.  They came very close and everyone had 4-5 opportunities to touch them.  George, the marine biologist, gave us a very good briefing prior to the dive and then met us at the site with the dolphins following his boat out there.  It was a wonderful experience, I’d do it again in a heart beat, even for another $200!!   We have the video and have included at the bottom of this post.

The Sea Aquarium next door was a little small, but definitely worth a visit.   There is a schedule, and you can watch the dolphin and sea lions train, as well as feeding of the fish.  We also have some great photos of Crystal and Sherry feeding the nurse sharks.  You can schedule a time to snorkel with the dolphins or sea lions if you like.  Sherry and Crystal scheduled private time with the sea lions where they were allowed to touch one, get a kiss from one, and then snorkel with several in their pens attached to the open ocean.

One of the biggest highlights for me on the trip is that I was introduced to Dolphin Assisted Therapy.  At the sea aquarium they have a two week therapy session for the disabled.  They take anyone from childhood to young adult.  The facility is staffed with physical therapists, occupational therapists, social workers and speech therapists, who work with the patient dockside.  As part of their therapy or behavior rewards for the child, each child gets to interact with the dolphins.  A dolphin trainer is also present at each platform to work with the therapists.  Because of my background as a therapist, I was encouraged to come learn about the center, and was permitted to observe as the sessions were going on in the water.  It was a wonderful thing to see.  The director of the program introduced me to the program itself, and gave me information to bring back home.  As most of the participants are from Germany and Holland currently, she was hoping I’d take the idea home to the Americans.    It is only one of a very few facilities of its kind in the world.  She said she had seen some phenomenal results, as kids come back year after year.  It is $6000 US to participate, but it appeared to me to be worth every penny.  She also stated they were building more hotel rooms right next door that were being designed to be more handicapped accessible, not only for program participants, but also for the general population that has more difficulty getting around, due to age or disability.

Towards the end of the week we added a few non diving activities to our agenda.  First we went to the Aloe Vera farm, where you could see aloe plant after aloe plant after aloe plant.  Their products are 98% aloe vera, which is supposed to have very healing properties.  It was a quick stop, but I thought worth the trip.  Right next door, we went to the Ostrich Farm, which was some of the most fun we had all week.  We climbed up on a big old German world war two vehicle that had been outfitted with benches for tourists.  Our guide took us around the farm explaining facts about, and the habits of the ostrich.  There is a restaurant onsite were fresh ostrich is served, if you desire to partake.  We just took the tour out of pure interest.  For $10 it was worth the trip.  At one point we got off our vehicle, each held a big pan of ostrich food, slowly backed our way up to the ostrich pen, and all these ostrich heads appeared curling around in front of us going crazy on that bucket of food.  You couldn’t help but just burst out laughing!   Later we actually got to hold a 3 day old chick and we each stood on an ostrich egg because they’re so strong they can hold up to 400 pounds!  They have to, because the males fertilize them!  We learned they’re not the smartest animals, but that they are some of the strongest!  Their method of defense is kicking forwards with both of their legs.  They can defend themselves and kill  a cheetah by kicking them in the head.  They broke both the forearm bones of a hired hand awhile back the guide told us.   “He didn’t come back after that”, the guide said.

We also went to a small cave in the area which was a fun diversion.    It was the first cave Mike had ever been to, so he found it very entertaining.  There were plenty of bats on the  ceiling, and interesting formations inside to be found.   The guide was knowledgeable and friendly.  Most people on the island spoke Dutch and English, so wherever we went there was someone who could speak to us in English.  After the cave we drove north and hit the coast line.  We walked over a natural bridge, went into caves the sea ran in and out of, and hiked along the coastline to see what we could see.

The last couple of days we went downtown for a little shopping.  They had a very quaint little, Dutch styled downtown.  There was a waterway dividing the two sides of town.  Connecting both sides of the town was a bridge you could walk across to get from Punda to Otrabanda.    The interesting thing about the bridge is that it had a motor at one end.  When the large cruise ships or cargo ships went through, they engaged the engine on the bridge and pushed it to the side to allow the ships to pass.  During this occurrence, people were shuttled from one side to the other via small ferry.  We used both methods of transit during our stay just for the fun of it.  Also downtown we saw the floating market.  This was where all the small boats gather that carry produce across the ocean from Venezuela.  Locals go there to purchase their fresh produce and exchange goods.  We saw some fun artwork in their alleyways, an old beautiful church with white sand for its floor, and lots of the local wares.  Of note, the map given to us by the hotel had many unmarked roads on it.  Also some of the roads on the map were marked very poorly with lack of street signs on the island.  It took a little bit of getting used to getting around on our own, but with a little help from the front desk for directions, by the end of the week, we were getting around to just about anywhere we wanted to go.

All in all, it was a very fun trip.  Curacao is definitely a place I’d return to.  We’d been to Bonaire 3 times, as we liked it very much.  We expected Curacao to be very similar, and in many ways it was.  The language, the laid back people, and the diving was much the same.  However, Curacao is a bit more developed.  It’s larger with more to do than on Bonaire.  So, if non-divers were participating on the trip, I’d have to pick Curacao over Bonaire, because there’s more places to go and more things to do.  Nightlife is also more plentiful in Curacao, as compared to Bonaire, for all you party hounds our there!

We hope you enjoy.

Shannon

Photos from our Trip