Curacao 2002 - Habitat
Where? A lot of people we have spoken to are not familiar with Curacao. Curacao is part of the Dutch Antilles and lies about 30 miles of the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean sea, It's neighbour Bonair is a better known dive destination.
We chose Curacao as we had 10 days available which meant that we had to find somewhere which had daily flights in and out. Getting there proved to be a bit of a pain but it was worth it.
We booked a flight on the web at KLM, one of two international airlines to fly in daily, this meant flying to Amsterdam first and then on to Aruba for a quick stop then on to Curacao, around 14 hours in total. We took in as much info as we could about the island and decided to split our break between the West and East sides of the island. In the West we booked our accommodation at Habitat and in the more commercial East at the Marriott
We started of at Habitat where the rooms are modern and comfortable, our room (as do most) faced the sea where we were treated to Pelicans fishing each morning. Habitat is a dedicated dive resort and there is not a great deal to do within walking distance of the hotel other than dive.
Diving is run on a diving freedom basis meaning that for a fixed fee we got two boat dives and unlimited shore dives each day, we could wander down to the house reef at any time, day or night and dive. Boat dives were from fast day boats with sites up to one hour away. We were really impressed with the quality of the dive sites, lots of hard and soft coral and more sponges than we have ever seen. There is a lot of very small aquatic life here which made a nice change. The dive guides were great and to top it all one of the best dives is the house reef, easily available from the shore. We were also able to hire a macro lens for our MX10.
From Habitat we headed East to the Marriott which is not far from the capitol Willemstad. While the Marriott was very nice indeed and the dive store associated with it was friendly and well run, we did not find the diving anything like as fulfilling as in the West.
We will certainly go back to Caribbean again and wouldn't hesitate in recommending the Habitat