June 18, 2001: Curacao, Netherlands Antilles

A Curacao 2001 dive

"Cas Abao (Lower House)" - "Pelican Beach" - "Habitat Curacao House Reef"

Diving off of Curacao:

• Directions from Tampa: Well, you're not gonna drive there. Curacao is smack dab between Aruba and Bonaire, off of the northern coast of Venesuela.
• Conditions on the day of my visit: Sunny.
  
  
• Personal Notes: I took some nice video in the morning of the area, had breakfast, and then went back to the room to put the camera back into the underwater housing. I wandered my way down to the dock to get my gear together to get onto the boat and go diving. I put my camera into the "Cameras Only" dunk bucket and walked away. Two minutes later I looked into the dunk bucket to check on it and saw a steady stream of bubbles coming from the top of the housing.
  
  While uttering several choice expletives, I pulled the camera and housing out of the water to find about an inch of water inside the housing. The camera, dripping water from inside, wouldn't work ... so I took the battery off and hunted for Lex, the dive manager of the resort. Lex called one of the camera guys who suggested opening up the camera as much as possible and putting it in the film dryer the resort has for drying slide film.
  
  "Cas Abao" means "Lower House," and was named because someone built one of their houses nearby. "Pelican Beach" was named because there are often (except the day we were there) a lot of pelicans hanging out there. I don't remember much from the dives (didn't take a camera) but I can assure you they were great dives in any event. I was probably in a haze about the camera flooding for most of the day ... it mostly worked when I got it back from the camera shop the first time, but then the digital displays that tell me I'm recording, how much time I have left, and how much battery life I have left stopped working. We put it in the dryer for two more days but even after that, for a while it was hit or miss if the displays would work ...
  
  The night dive off of the House Reef was great. I was unencumbered by the camera (see the night dive on June 21st for a comparison) and could enjoy the sights, including several cocooned Parrotfish, many moray eels, and the eeriness of diving in the ocean at night.