Curaçao by Marcus

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Once more aboard Marina EM! After a 3-hour trip from Miami, I arrived at Curaçao's airport, took a taxi and met Tony and Marina at a supermarket near Spaanse Water Bay (Spanish Waters Bay), where his sailboat was anchored. This time, Tony’s daughter Marina was going to travel with us. She lives in New Zealand with her mother and usually spends a few months with Tony on his sailboat.

Curaçao is part of The Netherlands Antilles, consisting of Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, St. Martin and St. Eustatius. The official languages are Papiamento, Spanish and English, although most people also speak Dutch due to the number of tourists from The Netherlands. This language mess is quite unusual for a monolingual or bilingual person like most of us. You will see street signs and advertisements in all languages, depending where you go in the island. Papiamento is the most widely spoken language, and is a mix of Dutch, some African dialects, Portuguese and Spanish. There are several versions of the meaning of the name Curaçao, one of them is that it comes from curaçao, which means healing in Portuguese (not heart as most think, which would be coração).

We boarded and stored our supplies, had a nice dinner and talked about shells. The next morning, we left Marina on the boat and drove Tony’s car to Daaibooi Bay, a few miles away. The beach is nice, and a few tourists were already there enjoying the place. We put on our wetsuits and dived off the beach. I found a couple of beautiful Cypraea acicularis, some Conus regius, Trivia pediculus, Limas, and some small shells. The water was not as warm as on past trips – I was spoiled by Panama and Colombia, but at least the weather was good, no rain and not too hot for sleeping.

On the next day, I tried diving inside Spaanse Water, but the visibility was not very good, and too few shells around to make me stay long. So Tony suggested that I go to the bay’s entrance where I could dive at the drop-off. It was much nicer there; I collected some very nice specimens of Vasum capitellum, Mitras, Chlamys ornata and Lima scabra. After sorting all the shells on the boat, I went to a small near island to look for Cerion. I found several live specimens, and just a few dead Tudora sp.

This time we had to be more careful to conserve fresh water for cooking, drinking or shower; there was one more person than on the last trip, and Tony’s desalination system was broken. There was no sign of heavy rain which could have helped fill our tanks. We could have bought water at the pump station inside the bay, but that would have cost more than US$ 200. Tony knew of another place – Piscadera Bay, where it was much cheaper, so we lifted anchor and left.

On the way, we dredged at 150-200 meters. The sea was relatively calm, so I was perfectly fine with my regular dose of Dramamine… The bottom was coarse sand, and Tony found a few Marginellas, but no sign of Conus or other larger shells. (I’d rather feel miserable with sea sickness but find shells!)

Spaanse Water is a very crowded place, full of boats. Piscadera is a smaller bay, but has docking facilities to clean and repair boats. Tony had already booked a hull-cleaning job after our trip. We anchored and I ran the dinghy to the mouth of the bay. I found Fissurellas and most of the species also found at Spaanse. That place was very calm, our boat was the only one anchored there. For someone like me who lives in a city with 20 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area, sleeping in a total silence and darkness is a blessing. On the first few nights I even woke up not knowing for sure where I was!

Another plus on this trip was the Internet. For the first time we had Wi-Fi broadband available on the boat, working nearly 100% of the time. That way I was able to contact Jose (and my girlfriend Marina – yes, too many Marinas in this story…) every day. Marina (Tony’s daughter, just to clarify) also was happy since she likes to watch streaming videos – of course we are not talking about real fast Internet, so it took 30 minutes to download short movies.

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The next morning, we went to St. Michiel’s bay, not far north from Piscadera. The place looked very nice, with clear and fresh water. My first dive was near shore, where the water was light green. I knew that this color does not indicate good visibility, as most people would think, so I moved next to the drop-off. Got some more Vasum and a few other shells. When I returned to the boat, Tony suggested that I dive under a large buoy next to the bay’s entrance. He took me there and – wow! What a nice place! The visibility was amazing! I got some shells attached to the buoy and dived down to the point where it was attached by a huge metal chain. It was anchored to another chain 20 meters deep. This second chain was connected to two more, which were welded to a giant container-sized metal box. These other chains were even thicker – each link was about 60cm long, fully covered with coral and other marine life. The whole place looked like a gigantic aquarium! It was my second dive, and I was tired and freezing. We needed to go back to Piscadera to fill our water tank so I went back, planning to return the next day.

We returned to Piscadera Bay and spent the night. Early in the morning while the water tank was being filled, I helped Tony with his shell database and other computer software. When the tank was full, we went back to St. Michiel’s. I wore two wetsuits (well, one was a Lycra diving skin) and dived off the back ladder. There are many turnable rocks where I found a beautiful Conus ermineus, Conus regius, Pinna carnea, Chlamys sentis, Lima scabra, Turris, some Buccinidae and other bivalves. The place was full of marine life and I could not resist going down on the drop-off. I went to 35 meters and the visibility was still fantastic, I felt like flying in air! I did not see many sea urchins this time; I still have bad memories about my accident in Colombia. But I did see several stonefish – very well hidden with their natural camouflage. Although they are quite poisonous, they do not pose any threat to careful divers. We returned to Piscadera for the night, and the next day, went straight to Fuik Bay, south of Spaanse.

We dredged on the way, but did not get many shells and almost lost our dredge when it got stuck on the bottom. Fuik is an elongated bay, having just a narrow land spit separating it from the rough sea. Since there is not much current inside, the water was quite murky – but at least not as cold as St. Michiel’s. I went to the bottom, where I found some Strombus pugilis and nothing else – Braille diving again! I moved to shallower water on the inner edge of the bay where I found some nice limpets, Limas, Chlamys antillarum and even Strombus gigas – which of course I did not collect. But… my enemies were there by the hundreds: sea urchins! It felt like diving in a minefield – I inflated my BC so I could remain slightly above the bottom. I took as much care as possible not to hurt myself again, almost like diving in very slow motion. I escaped without accident and worked my way back to the boat. Being tired – and by now cold even in the warmer water, I lost concentration and when I moved my hand to fan sand, I directly hit an urchin! The sound of broken glass, added to the deep pain made me scream underwater (Portuguese curses would not be understood by local fish anyway). I looked at my glove and saw several black spikes protruding from my fingers. I slowly removed the glove, but sliding it out broke the @#%@# spines and caused more pain. I was able to extract a few of them underwater and got back to the boat. Most of them just broke my skin but a few entered deep into the flesh. Too bad I can’t wear heavy gloves, which would prevent picking up small shells. Well, I guess I’ll have to increase my Attention Deficit Disorder medication dosage and pay more attention next time!

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After a good night’s sleep, the three of us went ashore to look for land shells. We found many Cerion, a few dead Drymaeus multilineatus, Neritas, Littorinas and Planaxis. Tony returned to the boat, Marina and I went to the opposite shore. When we got there we found the same Cerions, but also beautiful live Drymaeus! They were firmly stuck to tree branches – and, of course, it had to be some sort of trees fully covered with thorns! After we got some shells, many scratches and mosquito bites, we returned to the boat.

My trip was near to ending, so we returned to Spaanse Bay for return to the airport. My last dive was at the mouth of the bay again, but this time I went further out to see if I could find anything different. I found many more shells, and the visibility was fantastic. The place was breathtaking – suddenly I was surrounded by a large school of small blue fish which came very close. Also, lots of other colored fish – very annoying since at every rock I turned, they attacked to eat anything that looked edible. I found nice Coralliophila abbreviata, Chlamys sentis, Vasum, Cypraea cinerea, Conus centurio, Turris and many others. In the afternoon, I packed all my shells and let my dive gear dry – it was windy so everything was fully dry in a couple of hours.

I booked a taxi at the marina (no, neither my girlfriend, or Tony’s daughter or sail boat) for the next morning. I arrived at the airport several hours before my flight and was able to check out the duty-free shops – as usual I did not take any tour on the island, so I had to buy gifts there for my daughter, my niece and my girlfriend…