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Dive Review of Dive Charter Curacao/Marazul Dive Resort in
Curaçao

Dive Charter Curacao/Marazul Dive Resort, Mar, 2012,

by Brigitte Lacouture, AK, US (Contributor Contributor 15 reports with 4 Helpful votes). Report 6470.

No photos available at this time

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Accommodations 4 stars Food N/A
Service and Attitude 5 stars Environmental Sensitivity 3 stars
Dive Operation 4 stars Shore Diving 5 stars
Snorkeling N/A
Value for $$ 5 stars
Beginners 3 stars
Advanced 4 stars
Comments We did two days of boat dives with Dive Charter Curacao, owned by Niels Jorissen. He dives west, east, Klein Curacao, and other spots, going for more remote locations as well as popular sites. He uses a RIB, which can move fast, but is uncovered from the sun so bring sunscreen or some cover, especially when diving east side as he can not beach the boat as it is private property. His operation is low key, he meets you at the launch where he puts his boat into the water. The small group sizes, we had 6 divers each day plus dive master Ron, made it easy to interact with the other divers and made the diving pleasant. Although this setup would seem more appropriate for more advanced divers, we had some less experienced divers on board. Ron was accommodating in that he let my wife and I continue our dives to 60 minutes on our own with his float when he had to take the other divers up earlier; he just asked us to not go longer than 60 minutes, which was fair to us and those on the boat. Lunch was meat, cheese, and fresh buns with soda and water to drink, plenty of food for seconds. We had originally booked charters with Niels for 3 days, but he did not have enough people for the trip to Klein Curacao and we did not want 2 hr boat ride on big boat with snorkelers and beachgoers, so we ended up just going east and west with DCC. The two east dives were on walls and were completely blanketed with soft corals, quite extraordinary, and the two west dives, Watamula and Mushroom Forest, were fine, but would have benefited from more sun penetrating the water as the day was partly cloudy. All dives were drift in mild current.

For our shore dives we got tanks from Ocean Encounters West (Westpunt) and from Discovery Diving (Lagun). The former are much larger, but also more expensive; the latter are definitely more low key, but also less expensive, a couple dollars less for both tanks and weights. Playa Lagun had 6 scorpionfish (along the cliff not on the reef), Alice in Wonderland had excellent coral and fish population as did the Marazul Resort house reef. Apart from the variety of Caribbean fish, we saw several Lionfish on each dive. Marazul Resort is relaxing, no crowds or hustle and bustle, and has very clean, planted grounds. The unit was well equipped and caught the steady breezes on the island so we did not even need to run the air conditioning.
Websites Dive Charter Curacao   Marazul Dive Resort

Reporter and Travel

Dive Experience 101-250 dives
Where else diving Saba, Cayman, St. Vincent, Cozumel, Tahiti, Fiji, Borneo, Hawaii, GBR
Closest Airport Getting There

Dive Conditions

Weather sunny, windy, cloudy Seas calm, no currents
Water Temp 26-26°C / 79-79°F Wetsuit Thickness 4
Water Visibility 20-30 M / 66-98 Ft

Dive Policy

Dive own profile yes
Enforced diving restrictions Time limit of 60 minutes for consideration of other divers.
Liveaboard? no Nitrox Available? N/A

What I Saw

Sharks None Mantas None
Dolphins None Whale Sharks None
Turtles None Whales None
Corals 4 stars Tropical Fish 4 stars
Small Critters 3 stars Large Fish 2 stars
Large Pelagics 1 stars

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subject Matter N/A Boat Facilities N/A
Overall rating for UWP's N/A Shore Facilities N/A
UW Photo Comments [None]
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Note: The information here was reported by the author above, but has NOT been reviewed nor edited by Undercurrent prior to posting on our website. Please report any major problems by writing to us and referencing the report number above.

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