The whole story started when I wanted to go diving with the manta rays
in Tobago. Unfortunately, at that time, the trip for a family of five
like mine proved out to be a little bit too pricey for my shallow purse.
It is then that the owner of Aquadreams, the very professional Gene Dold
(Aquadreams which has its web site onwww.aquadreams.com, is a travel agency
based in Miami and specialised in diving packages, with a focus on Caribbean
islands; its prices are very much lower than comparable England based
travel agencies and the service offered is first class [e.g., a specific
email is sent to you to give you the UPS reference of a parcel that has
been sent to you; the tickets for the trip came with a lot of documentation
on the island and on the diving there; all questions are answered at once]),
came with a suggestion which sounded more or less like “Why not try
Curacao, one of the best kept secrets of the Caribbean islands?”
After some investigations (among other things, best thanks to Nigel Turner
and Iona Hill who gave some very comprehensive answers to some of the
questions which I had put on a divers' forum), I decided to give it
a go and I must say that I have not had any single regret about it at
any time.
If I were to describe the diving in Curacao at the Sunset Beach Waters
Resort in a few words, it probably would be: “Easy relaxed diving
on a magnificent resident reef, best dived at nights when all other divers
are asleep, leaving you free to focus on what you want”.
But to give some inner feeling about diving in Curacao, let me try to
make you share the sensations during one of these night dives:
“It is 9:00 o'clock p.m. and the beach is completely empty and
pitch dark, except for the projector light and for the spare bulbs that
are kept running at all times around the diving club, just to help the
divers get ready. My buddy and myself are strangely silent, probably due
to some primal nocturnal fears. When we arrive at the diving club, as
agreed upon with Harry, the Dutch owner of the diving club, two tanks
are waiting for us, bright yellow against the surrounding darkness, our
own little lighthouses. We retrieve our equipment from the club locker
and we gear up without exchanging a word, focusing on the “task”
ahead.
After the usual checks (strange how at nights, such routine checks are
even more important than during daytime to keep your mind from wandering
onto more sinister thoughts), we walk the few meters of white sand that
separate us from the sea and easily enter the refreshing waters within
the boundaries of an artificially made lagoon. After taking our compass
bearings, we hover over the ripples of the sand to the open sea, encountering
in our way some ghostly grey snappers (Lutjanus griseus), which
quickly swim out of sight.
Soon after, we come across the remains of a small plane sunk on purpose
for try-dives. In the light of our torches, it comes out brightly lit
in orange by all the orange cup corals (Tubastraea coccinea) that
festoon it and only open at night to reveal their striking colour. This
is a truly magnificent sight!
But, it is time for bigger things and we swim away to deeper grounds.
A couple of fin strokes take us to the edge of the shallow waters and
we peep into what we know to be almost infinite depths (during daytime,
we have been able to get a glimpse of what lies down there and it seemingly
goes down forever and ever, up to…150 meters, according to the local
divers). We glide effortlessly down until we reached the agreed upon depth
of 20 meters where we adopt a more horizontal course.
The first thing that strikes me is the variety of corals: although I
am not an expert, I can easily make out more than ten different varieties
in terms of forms, colours or shapes. Everywhere around them, hundreds
of marine creatures are busy finding their way and food, from small, transparent
larvae that hover in the open and which you can only notice at night when
your torch lights them, up to some very large specimen of Caribbean spiny
lobsters (Panulirus argus) and hairy clinging crabs (Mithrax
pilosus), very similar to spider crabs. In between these two extremes,
when looking carefully in all nooks and crannies and waiting long enough
to detect movements, I can see little banded coral shrimps (Stenopus
hispidus) which are commonly seen at cleaning stations, some Pederson
cleaner shrimps (Periclimenes pedersoni) with their transparent
bodies and their purple legs, several blue-eye hermits (Paguristes
sericeus) as well as a delicate banded clinging crab (Mithrax cinctimanus)
in the middle of a giant anemone (Condylactis gigantea).
Then, all of a sudden, a startling spot of bright turquoise colour catches
my eye and I see a specimen of a juvenile Caribbean Reef octopus (Octopus
briareus). For some unknown reason, he likes my torch and decides
to spend some time playing like a young pup with me, swimming back and
fro between the reef and me. Eventually, it disappears in the darkness
below, changing colour at the very last moment from its original turquoise
to a dark orange.
Then, something more sinister then slowly edges its way in the area lit
by my torch and a hunting purplemouth moray (Gymnothorax vicinus)
comes to investigate all interstices to find its “catch of the day”.
The way this moray thoroughly and methodically investigates all potential
hides, one after the other, leaving no ground unexplored, gives me the
creeps and leaves me sorry for the fish that have hidden there. All of
sudden, it does not seem a good idea anymore for a fish to hide in the
reef during the night, especially if you consider the number of morays
that hunt there and their methodical hunting process.
Other morays like the spotted morays (Gymnothorax moringa) which
I observed during the same night dive, also seem to hunt in a similar
pattern, gliding stealthily and deathly from one hole to the next, up
and down. Later, I even get the chance to watch one when it catches a
prey: in a split second, it is over. The frenetic moves stop, the water
calms down and the moray resumes its quest for some more food.
By the time we have seen all these things, we have to get back to shore:
using the shallow wreck of the airplane as an indicator to the way out,
we are soon back to the club where it is difficult to acknowledge that
already an hour and a half has gone by in what had seemed to be a ten-minute
dive at the most.
Next time for sure, I will bring an underwater camera!
