JanthielBaai

JanthielBaai

Curacao, ABC Islands
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Difficulty
Unrated
Viz (last reported 90194h ago)
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Unknown

Snorkeling and Scuba Diving at JanthielBaai

The Southernmost, reasonable shore diving spot on Curacao is JanthielBaai. As a full service beach facility for families and divers, you'll find concessions, shade, showers, and even a dive shop on site. This is a great beach to spend the morning or afternoon. This site is 2.1 km Southeast of the Sea Aquarium, but the direct road is no longer open. You'll need to wind your way East of Willemstad to the community of Janthiel, off Caracasbaai. There are no easy instructions for the drive; you must obtain a good road map, and note the distances to each turn since many of the streets have no street signs. Good luck-- It's worth the search!
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4.6
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Robert J. West
Robert J. West
Jun 13, 2004, 12:00 AM
scuba
The shore entry here is literally the easiest sandy beach entry I've ever been at. The beach itself is pretty popular, particularly on weekends, and we had zero security worries here. Did a shore dive along the reef east of the protected swimming area - a nice dive with the surface chop on entry & exit minimized by the topography of the bay. Very little current, but it can change quickly - when we started east, there was no current, but shortly after turning around and ascending to around 30 feet we were swimming against a slight current, so check for current periodically before you use more than half your tank. It's quite a distance either east or west of the bay for another decent shore entry / exit point. This was a nicely sloped wall dive. The slight current was enough to have 3 different types of crinoids here, barracuda, lots of anemones, and 3 different species of cleaner shrimp (in droves). If you go west from the bay, to a spot with no marker buoy (but a concrete anchorage with rope) that some of the DM's called "Nude Beach", there's a sand flat with a BIG mantis shrimp living in a hole there. The wall is more vertical on this section west of the bay, but just as nice. The Scuba Do shop here does a lot of business in resort courses and OW certifications. They don't have Nitrox, but do have hyper filtered air, and were courteous and professional. Snorkeling in the shallows at twilight here, we found sharptail eels in the open (one even tested my big toe tentatively!), and I found a fire worm right after that with my bare foot ( YOW! I had no idea what I'd hit until my wife told me she got a great picture of a fire worm out in the open, looking like it had been disturbed) - so if you're in the rocky / rubble shallows instead of the true "beach" area around the entry, wear booties even if you're not diving or snorkeling! The restaurant Zanzibar at the beach here was great, and they even gave me some vinegar for my foot!
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