Dive Review of Go West Diving/All West Apartments in
Curaçao

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Go West Diving/All West Apartments: "Changes at a favorite destination, not for the better", Apr, 2024, by Burro Station, VA, US ( Sr. Reviewer 8 reports with 7 Helpful votes). Report 12988 has 2 Helpful votes.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food	N/A
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	All West Apartments is located in Westpunt, about half an hour from Willemstad. All West is a small, simple, reasonably-priced complex of about a dozen clean and comfortable apartments, all with ocean-front balconies or terraces, fully equipped kitchens, and efficient air-conditioning. From your west-facing deck you can enjoy tropical birds and hummingbirds in the morning and sunsets each evening. All West provides airport transportation and hassle-free onsite truck rentals. They are set up for divers with a secure room to rinse and store gear and to pick up and return tanks. The location is convenient to the Go West Diving shop and several beaches good for shore diving. April 2024 was our sixth visit. The last one was in 2017, and Westpunt has seen some changes since then: a lot of new construction, and the new-to-us daily influx of tour buses at the parking lot adjacent to the apartments. All West is still a great place to stay if you’re willing to work around the hordes of cruise ship passengers and other tourists arriving by the busload and crowding the beach (known as Playa Piskado or Playa Grandi). This formerly peaceful spot is now heavily promoted as the best place to snorkel with sea turtles, and additional development of the beach is in the works. Local fishermen have always cleaned their fish there and thrown the scraps off the dock, which attracted the sea turtles. Feeding the turtles is now a performance for tourists. It appears that some of the tourists harass the turtles by following too closely and trying to touch them. That is why I gave a low rating for Environmental sensitivity, though it applies to the whole island full of promoters, not the accommodations or dive operation. A few voices in the wilderness are decrying the exploitation, but it is doubtful they will have much influence. The reefs we dove were in sad shape, with large areas of dead coral in shades of brown, beige, and white. Overfishing has clearly taken a toll, as saw very few parrot fish, all of them small. The good news is that we saw few invasive lionfish. We did all of our diving from shore, on the All West house reef, the Go West Diving house reef, Playa Lagun, Playa Jeremi, Klein Knip, and Porto Saint Marie. All were conveniently located with nice beaches, easy for entering/exiting the water, but much diminished underwater. The high point of our visit was a night snorkel in front of the apartment with, among other creatures, a large slipper lobster and a two-foot-long reef squid. Water temperatures were in the 80s, even at depth. Record-setting heat is projected for this summer. The four stars are for the ease of shore-diving. I deducted that 5th star because what you can see underwater is so degraded from what it once was, but the dive op is still good.
Websites	Go West Diving All West Apartments
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	101-250 dives
Where else diving	Curacao, Bonaire, Florida, Salt Cay TCI, Cayman Brac, St. Croix, St. Eustatius
Closest Airport	CUR	Getting There	We flew nonstop on American from Charlotte (CLT)
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, dry	Seas	calm
Water Temp	81-83°F / 27-28°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	40-80 Ft/ 12-24 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	?
Enforced diving restrictions	[Unspecified]
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
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	N/A	Large Fish
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities	N/A
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

Report currently has 2 Helpful votes

Subscriber's Comments

By Jan Abraham in MA, US at Aug 11, 2024 12:55 EST

Mirrors our thoughts from our last trip. Playa Kalki at the Dive shop is still really good as is Lagun but Playa Piscado is been loved to death. We had many good trips, nothing lasts forever. If you are comfortable you can enter the water at All West dive down the coast the shop, change tanks, have a snack and then dive back home. lots to see along the way.

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Dive Review of Go West Diving/All West Apartments in Curaçao

Go West Diving/All West Apartments: "Changes at a favorite destination, not for the better", Apr, 2024,

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):

Subscriber's Comments

Dive Review of Go West Diving/All West Apartments in
Curaçao