Bryan Horne, Dive Curaçao for DiveNewsWire
Curaçao’s April Dive Site of the Month.
Discover what is now one of the coolest and most talked about experiences in the entire Caribbean – The Blue Room, a perfect place for off-gassing between dives or for a wonderful snorkel trip.
Located next to Mushroom Forest at the end of a one kilometer stretch of land in the Santa Cruz area of Banda Abou, you will find a small opening at water level that could be passed by easily without thinking too much about it.
In the past, divers were happily distracted exploring one of the Caribbean’s most renowned sites: the inimitable Mushroom Forest, just a few lazy fin-kicks from the narrow cliffside entrance. Curaçao was still off the radar then, so divers attracted to the more bucolic West End were focused on sites like Alice in Wonderland, Mushroom Forest, and the exhilarating Watamula. Once in the water, the allure of dizzyingly clear blue water and dramatic healthy reefs kept divers busy. Wishing the air in their tanks was unending, they descended the life-packed sloping walls rather than heading toward shore, except to return, reluctantly, to the boat.
Since then, Curaçao has attracted more attention, enthusiasts are increasingly visiting the West End and staying on for their entire dive holiday. Like good dive shops everywhere, local establishments have spent their free time looking for new, exciting, and unique places to take their clients. Eventually, some intrepid explorer ventured beneath the foot-high slit that marks the entrance of the open-air water cavern to discover the Blue Room.
But the story of the Blue Room begins not as a dive site. It originally appealed to antsy divers as a perfect place to go off-gas between scuba forays into the nearby Mushroom Forest. The Blue Room is easily explored by snorkelers and once you duck under the narrow opening, the small cavern opens-up to an air-filled chamber, complete with tiny bats. Only about 20-feet deep, it was a perfect jaunt between dives, and a good breath could take almost anyone to the bottom.
Read the full story, originally published April 8, 2019, on DiveNewsWire.
Photos courtesy of Turtle & Ray Productions HD.