Dive Review of Go West Diving/Rental House in
Curaçao

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Go West Diving/Rental House: "Great Operator - Better than Expected Diving", Feb, 2022, by Gary & Robin Schiendelman, PA, US ( Top Contributor 31 reports with 46 Helpful votes). Report 11866 has 1 Helpful vote.
Photos Submitted with this Report Click on an image to see an enlarged version and captions
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations	N/A	Food	N/A
Service and Attitude	N/A	Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	We rented a house through VRBO and thought we would be doing a minimal amount of diving during the 4 weeks we spent in Curacao. We ended up diving almost every day while we were there. We alternated shore dives at 4 beaches (reviewed separately) with boat diving. Based on the location of our rental house and UC reviews, we decided to dive with Go West Diving. They offered 2 tank morning boat dives and they were a 20 minute easy drive from our house. Located on Playa Kalki Beach, their dive shop offers rental equipment, a clean bathroom, rinse tanks and even a coffee/tea station for clients. There are small lockers available for anything you don't want to take on the boat (bring your own lock). If you are diving with them every day, there is a gear room where you can leave all your gear and they will give you a large bucket for transport to/from the boat. They loaded gear onto a wheel barrow to be taken to the boat and back. Leaving at 8:30 am (earlier if everyone was there and ready) we did 2 one hour dives with a 50-60 minute surface interval. Returned to the dock around 12:30. They were not doing afternoon boat dives as there didn't seem to be enough requests. However, if you do a morning boat dive, they will give you a tank to do an afternoon shore dive right in front of the shop. All of the boat dives were on the west end of the island. We heard the diving at the other end was also good, just different. We never did make it to the other end so can't comment. There were 3 different Dive Guide's and they were all were good to dive with. They had everyone geared up and ready to go when we arrived on the dive site. Everyone descended together after all divers were in the water. You were expected to stay in sight of the dive guide but they were slow swimmers so everyone had time to look around and take photos. If someone had to ascend early, a surface marker was deployed and the diver went up while everyone else continued the dive. At around 55 or 57 minutes, the signal was given for a safety stop and everyone surfaced together. The boat was always live so we never had to swim back to the boat. Only one dive with any appreciable current and we went with it and didn't swim against it. The boat was spacious and limited to 12 divers due to covid. Most days there were fewer. We handed fins and climbed up a decent at the end of the dive. Upon request, you could take your gear off in the water. They were very accomodating to anyone who asked for assistance. Water and juice were always available and sweet rolls (dushi) and oranges were served between dives. After returning to the dock, you could rinse your gear and store in their gear room or let it dry before loading in your car. There are picnic tables under a palapa, so wewould bring our lunch and enjoyed sitting at the table and talking to other divers while our gear dried before taking it home. The diving was so much better than we anticipated. We fully expected to see a lot of algae, dying coral and few fish. While there is a lack of "big stuff" the coral is much healthier than many other places in the Caribbean and there were LOTS of small to medium sized fish. Schools of fish bigger than we've seen in many years in the Caribbean. It was a delightful surprise! We saw no sharks, 2 southern stingrays, a few turtles. There are a couple of sites in Curacao that almost guarantee turtles but we never got to them. Peacock flounder, tons of anemones with most all of them hiding a crab or shrimp, schools of chromi's, enormous schools of boga, tons of creole fish, snappers. lobster, channel crabs, squid, arrow crabs, golden eels, green & Spotted moray eels, scorpion fish. There are multiple species of butterfly fish, parrot fish and angel fish. More but you get the idea. Curacao is really easy to navigate. The covid rules are somewhat stringent but clear on their website. Fill out a bunch of paperwork on line, test before going and test on day 3. Masks are required everywhere indoors. There are many options for lodging from apartments to hotels to luxury houses. US dollars are accepted everywhere as are credit cards (except gas stations require cash but will take USD). English was spoken everywhere. We saw relatively few US visitors. Most were European (Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland) as well as some Canadians. Unless you are staying at Lion's Dive or Sunscape, you will need to rent a car. All the “big” rental car agencies are on the island but we used a local company (Prins). We would recommend them. Go West Diving is a really good operation and the diving was so good that we will definitely go back. Boat diving is somewhat expensive but if you combine it with shore diving, you can cut costs and have a really good dive trip.
Websites	Go West Diving
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	Indonesia, PNG, Solomon Isl, Red Sea, Maldives, South Africa, Mozambique, Cocos Isl, Galapagos, Socorro, Palau, Var Caribbean locations, New Jersey, Florida, No Carolina, Philippines
Closest Airport		Getting There	United Airlines direct from Newark
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm
Water Temp	77-78°F / 25-26°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	60-100 Ft/ 18-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	Stay with dive guide
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	Dedicated rinse tank on the boat. The rinse tank on shore was only there sometimes.

Report currently has 1 Helpful vote

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Dive Review of Go West Diving/Rental House in Curaçao

Go West Diving/Rental House: "Great Operator - Better than Expected Diving", Feb, 2022,

Photos Submitted with this Report

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

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

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

Dive Review of Go West Diving/Rental House in
Curaçao