This is the farthest South that we snorkeled during this visit to Curacao. It's a tiny public beach hidden away in a corner of a neighborhood of big resorts near Willemstad. It's at the narrow entrance to a large bay (Pescadera Bay).
Our idea was to swim out to the point across the channel and snorkel around that coastline. The channel was a bit murky by Curacao standards so we couldn't see the bottom as we swam across it. The rocks in the shallows in the channel seemed silty and mostly bare.
We reached the point. The bottom here still seemed a bit bare and silty near shore.
I swam out a bit from the shore and saw a large flat area covered with sea fans and soft corals. This was probably the densest covering of sea fans that we saw on Curacao. We had swam farther from the channel so the water was clearer out here.
We continued to swim along the shoreline. This was a shallow (only a few feet deep), sandy area with mostly-dead hard corals.
We got out at the big beach to warm up for a bit. Since you have to swim to get here, this beach was deserted which is an unusual sight for Curacao. Nearby along the coast, the shoreline looked like it was recently cleared and blasted level. I assume this is going to be the site of another big resort.
While we were on the beach we could see a glass-bottomed boat tour cruising along off the coast. We swam out to see what they were looking at. We reached the area where the bottom drops off deeper. We swam back along the top of this "wall". The dropoff didn't seem like a solid wall of coral, but a very steep slope of sand with some hard coral mixed in.
So far, the area above the drop-off was nice and clear, but as we returned to the shallow area with lots of sea fans off the point, the visibility started to get worse. A wind had come up, creating some waves that were stirring up the bottom.
This was an interesting snorkel, especially in the area with all the sea fans off the point. Plus there's the opportunity to relax on a deserted beach (for now anyway, until the resort gets built).
