Uncategorized – SEA’ing Underwater

SCUBA DIVING IN CURAÇAO 2023

September 3rd, 2023

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I am updating this site just about on a daily basis, so keep checking back for addiotnal images and videos.

Thank you

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Scuba Diving Safety

Scuba diving can be a safe and enjoyable activity if proper safety measures are taken. Here are some important safety tips to keep in mind when diving in the any body of water:

Dive within your limits: It’s essential to be aware of your diving limits and stick to them. Don’t push yourself too hard and always dive within your comfort level.
Stay hydrated: Diving can be dehydrating, so make sure to drink plenty of water before and after your dive.
Use proper equipment: It’s important to use well-maintained, properly fitting scuba diving equipment to ensure your safety while diving.
Dive with a buddy: Always dive with a partner, so you have someone to watch your back and assist you if needed.
Be aware of your surroundings: Pay attention to your surroundings and avoid getting too close to marine life or underwater structures.
Check the weather and water conditions: Before diving, make sure to check the weather and water conditions to ensure safe diving conditions.
Don’t hold your breath: It’s crucial to breathe continuously while diving and avoid holding your breath, which can cause lung overexpansion injuries.

By following these safety tips, you can enjoy a safe and enjoyable diving experience in any body of water. It’s also important to ensure that you are properly trained and certified before diving, and to always follow the guidelines and rules set by your dive instructor or dive center.

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Our first trip to the this amazing island just north of Venezuela, South America. Traveling with John, Barb and Debbie. While John and I are off diving, his cousin Barb and her friend Debbie are going to be off on tours and seeing the sights if not out by one of the number of pools offered.

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We are going to be here for two weeks but staying at two different resorts. The first week we’ll be at #Lions_Dive_Resort and John and I will be diving out of #Ocean_Encounters.

The second week we’ll be out of #Sandals_Royal_Curaçao and diving out of their dive shop.

In this blog, I’ll be posting video clips and still images from the 18 different dives and even some from around the island and/or resorts, and posting those to their respective sections of each resort.

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To capture the diving videos and grabbing stills from those videos I used the #GoPro_Hero_11_Black. I had been using the GoPro Hero 5 Black over the last few years, so I’m sure as with most new equipment, there will be a slight learning curve at least. The camera will mounted on the end of my speargun (#Lionfish_Slayer) as we were hunting #lionfish on every dive (except the night dive), and you’ll see how the spear comes out for the kill ( and yes there were a few misses, but you will not see those, lol).

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Lion’s Dive Resort and Ocean Encounters Diving

Areal view of the shop from their website

For some insight on the dive shop itself…

They operate with three dive boats and if I remember correctly, there was only one day where only one boat went out but most every other day, two boats went out, if not the third. The crew was on top of it all, very professional of course but also made everyone feel comfortable and relaxed with the new sites we went to. In the 7 days I was diving with them, I did 13 dives but I went to 12 different sites, and the only one I repeated was the Tugboat dive site and, that was only because the first time there was for the night dive, then went again later in our stay on the second dive of the morning.

The dive shop had a very large “locker room” where everyone that had their own gear could lock up some of their more valuables and in the center they supplied hangers where one could hang their BCD’s. Overall a pretty smooth operation.

For those of you that still use log books for your dives, Ocean Encounters has two different stamps and, I’m only assuming they have two because of a change was made somewhere along the line. I personally like the one on the left because it has a Lionfish in the center, more on that I’ll post on another blog later on.

They do their night dives at a site called Tugboat, and for obvious reasons. After going out for about 25 minutes, we made the turn back and near where we started there was a….sunken tugboat.

I don’t think I’ve seen so many small shrimp on a single night dive as I did on this dive, it was really cool, but not as cool as the three octopus we had seen.

Below is a clip of one of the octopus that I saw during the night dive, and as you can see, I used the GoPro Quik app to save it, which I don’t believe I’ll be doing anymore.

Here are some still images I grabbed from the video during the night dive….

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Here’s a variety of Coral that I found unique in several ways

… This next group are some crustaceans we had seen on the night dive. Although in this first image it’s nearly impossible to see the Spiny Crab, you can see it more clearly as it moves in the following video. If it had not seen it move at the last second, I would have just kept on going.

Spiny crab video

Juvenile Spiny Crab

Soft shell crab video

Hermit Crab

Here are a few shrimp of the dozens we seen during the night dive

A Spotted Eel poking his head wondering what all the excitement is about…

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These next two pics are of the same worm, and by all means, you know what species, let me know. i thought it was cool looking though and, no I would not bait my hook with this thing…lol

Seeing an octopus anytime is ALWAYS AWESOME, but at night they seem much more beautiful and their colors seem to “pop” so much more as well. Here’s what we saw that night…

Now this is a long clip I know, but it’s of the two octopi that we saw during the night. (And it took me soooo long to get this uploaded, so you are welcome, lol)

—- Below we have a variety of sea anemone and a handful of quite colorful fish.

Trumpetfish…another reason why I love diving at night is because I’ve seen these guys countless times, but at night the colors just seem to pop out on
every thing we see in different ways that even natural daylight cannot compare to.

Okay, that is about it for the first and only night dive we went on here.

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Now here we go for the daytime pics and clips…everything from the countless schools and individual shots of Caribbean fish to Lionfish hunting, but no sharks, sorry. Enjoy and I’ll try to keep you informed on each pic/clip .

Just to reiterate, this section is from the dives that were done with #OceanEncounters, the guides were so knowledgable (of course they should be but it seemed different than from other dive shops).

Artificial Reef-Anchor. At first glance you only see the eye and a good part of the shaft to the anchor, but then you can see it more clearly as you follow the shaft to the right of the image, kind of behind what looks like a purple brain, lol.

Artificial Reef-Propeller. I never did find out why this big propeller shaft was dropped here, but at least the local dive community attached a mooring line to it to be able to tie off to.

Artificial Reef-Shark Net Posts….. I think…. lol

Bearded Fireworm… from my reading on this little guy, that was about 5” – 6” long, you do not want to touch this thing, not that I would anyway, but this thing will react to your skin just as Fire Coral would. So again, do not touch, lol

Here are images of some random coral that I thought looked interesting.

I couldn’t decide what kind of face this coral was making, lol

To me, this looked like a giant heart of coral or an over cooked loaded baked potato, lol

Got a Match???? Or did we transport to Hawaii….

No, this is not a soup pot, but another species of barrel coral

Yes… and I agree…. It is a Heart shaped coral

When I saw this bundle of coral, for some reason my first thought was New Years Eve…. Or Peter Piper Pizza, lol

Johnathan posing behind some
Elkhorn Coral

I’ve tried to search this piece of coral but to no avail, I thought looked cool

This is a Nemaster Grandis coral. I thought it looked gorgeous

Okay, you can see this in a few different ways…. I’ll leave that up to you, lol

These next images are of a couple of fields/groupings of pinnacle coral

I saw this and my first thought was…. A Sock Puppet? lol

Black and white spotted eel

So smooth in swimming through the reef

Moray Eel encounters

Moray Eel, up close and personal

Angelfish having lunch…

Seahorse in soft coral

Not all seahorses can be seen up in the soft coral, you really have to look for some of them. Just look at this next image. If the guide had not located this seahorse, I don’t think anyone would have picked up on it, plus one of the other divers was carrying a magnifying glass, which really helped in this case.

A couple of shrimp, although not quite big enough for me to eat with cocktail sauce.

A few shots of a Trunkfish

These next two are of a Yellowtail Damselfish

Yellowhead Jawfish. this first image is of what you’ll see in the preceding short clips.

Swimming behind a couple of Cuttlefish. As long as you don’t try to catch up with them and if possible swim along side of them, you can get a little close.

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Now before I get started on the Sandals dive images, let me show you some of what we had seen in and around town.

Sandals Curaçao Resort

Maui, December 2022

December 29th, 2022

Went to Maui for a week with Johnathan, he had a job to do so I went scuba diving….well a couple of days while he was working anyway, then he joined me for a couple more days of diving.

I dove with a dive shop based out of Maalaea Harbor called #MauiDiveShop. The crew was really cool. They called their services “valet diving” where they handled everything, unless you wanted to do your gear yourself, but they did a great job ensuring you had everything you needed, even if you brought your own gear.

They even had breakfast on the boat, pastries, fruit, breakfast burritos and even coffee. Then they even offered a sack lunch for the ride back to the harbor while they cleaned up everyone’s gear.

Great job guys, I very much appreciate you.