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Seaside Thrills

By George Oxford Miller

With more than 60 dive sites, visibility to 100 feet, mild currents, lush coral gardens, and wall, wreck and shore dive options, Curaçao deserves its reputation as one of the Caribbean's top dive locations. Best of all, many of the best sites are within swimming distance from shore. Tour companies and dive shops offer all-inclusive dive packages, so all you need is your certification. Many resorts also have accessible reef formations. Every dive site brings its own surprises, but here are a few not to be missed.

Lagun Beach and the Mushroom Forest
At a reef just 150 yards off the sugary-sand beach, you'll find turtles, porcupine fish, lobsters, green morays, hoards of jewel-like fish, caves and an incredible forest of giant mushroom-shaped star coral. Sport Diver magazine calls it one of the "World's Best Dives."

Sponge Forest
Located off Landhuis San Nicolas and accessible only by boat, this sloping wall thrives with some of the most spectacular sponges in the Caribbean, many measuring four feet wide and six feet tall.

Superior Producer
Rated one of the Caribbean's best dive wrecks, this 200-foot ship lies just outside the Willemstad harbor. Plan a morning dive and visit the barracudas, groupers, seahorses, corals and anemones. A plane wreck lies a few hundred yards to the west.

Jan Thiel Beach
Lined with lush coral heads and gorgonian beds, this protected lagoon offers great snorkeling and diving. The sloping terrace leads to a coral-covered wall rich with jewel-like fish.

Tugboat
Resting in 17 feet of water in a protected bay, this playground is one of the most popular sites on the island. A nearby wall drops to 100 feet with abundant corals, morays, scorpion fish, lobsters and thousands of multicolored fish.

Klein Curaçao
Book a day trip to this island 15 miles offshore, which takes approximately two hours each way, depending on the boat. You'll enjoy silky beaches, an old lighthouse, astounding coral and underwater caves.

Sandy's Plateau
Barracudas guard this lovely reef. The site is a favorite among local dive masters.

Small Wall
Look for big green morays and a resident Nassau grouper in hiding places along this wall, which drops from 15 feet to 40 feet.

Cornellius Bay
A beautiful wall and vibrant coral mark this site, which is still largely unexplored.

Director's Bay
Sea horses and frogfish like to hang out here.

Diver's Leap
Jump in and join the resident scaly-tail mantis shrimp.

Get dive site and beaches locations in the Map section.

Read about Curaçao's Annual Dive Festival.