Blind Faith in the Big Blue

Rosie Walford plumbs the depths of Curaçao

Say Curaçao, and one word springs to mind: blue. But the blue that counts is not in bottles. This Caribbean island, en route to or from Latin America, is the place to encounter the true, big blue. Curaçao is a wonderful place to learn to dive.

I’ve travelled through landscapes of every kind, but never felt anything like I did beside a curtain of Curaçao corals. It was different in every dimension. I was held in warm water, cradled and supported, rising and dropping at will. I could spin in any direction. No words intruded. To my left was the landscape, a jungle of coral and sponges, textures and tubes, a vertical wall of view. This would have been enough, but then there were the fish, truly psychedelic, fluorescent and busy doing their thing. It’s as impossible to describe as being in a city to someone who has never seen how bricks, glass and traffic combine.

For the first two days I was in the hands of my instructors. After a morning of theory, I headed for the water wearing a bewildering knot of wetsuits, bottles and tubes. Going under for the first time was frightening. It took blind faith and willpower to let myself sink wearing a jacket of lead weights. Was the pressure in my ears easing or intensifying? How could I swallow to moisten my throat with the breathing apparatus in my mouth? I was pathetically grateful to my instructor for peering straight into my mask, checking that I was OK.

Soon I became absorbed following turtles, watching angelfish cruise and parrotfish graze. Then I remembered to look around, above, beside. The blue ran deeper and deeper; to dark infinity in one direction, fading and clearing to silvery white above. Schools of fish crisscrossed me and each other in 360degrees. At once I felt agoraphobic and gloriously three dimensional. I surfaced, exhilarated and hungry for more.

Up ‘on top’ Curaçao is less exotic, appearing almost European apart from the eternal Caribbean sun. Modern cars run on smooth roads, supermarkets sell Marmite, and buildings are solid. For me, the beauty of the place lies underwater, and in their hearts the hotels know this: they are superbly equipped as bases for the exploration of this other world.

At the *Habitat Resort where I stayed, there’s an open-sided restaurant, a breezy bar serving cocktails, and a pool overlooking the private bays. Then comes the impressive bit; huge wooden decks lead straight from the equipment store to the water, five paces lead you onto the house reef, ten to the resort’s own boat jetty. There’s constant instruction available for every level of diver, underwater camera gear and even a darkroom. Best of all, the owner believes in 24-hour diving freedom, so you can kit up with lights and air, and be alone with the corals by night.

Every day, boats from Habitat and other hotels take packs of qualified divers to visit Curaçao’s famous sights: ‘The Mushroom Forest’ (a tug-boat wreck) and ‘El Rancho’ (home to a colony of sea-horses) to name but two. As a new diver, going out on these open-sea boat dives felt like eating with the grown ups - the real thing. Here, in one of the world’s best dive locations, the underwater experiences are truly intense, no two eyefuls are faintly the same.

Sunbathing and cocktails fill the gaps between dives. It can feel like being part of a 70’s Bacardi commercial; sipping mango daiquiris in wooden beachside bars, listening to cheesy jazz and watching lightning from storms in Venezuela. Alternatively, fast forward to the 90’s and rave through the night among young Dutch expats - tall, tanned and blond (for the record) - on an open-air beach dancefloor. Even the simple pleasure of drinking in the capital, Willemstad, is slightly surreal.

Willemstad was developed by Dutch colonialists of the West India Company around the mouth of a natural deepwater harbour. By the 17th century it was thriving as a hub of the lucrative Dutch slave trade, and so the harbour front is wealthy old Holland with a Caribbean twist. Tall, narrow houses rise to mad curlicue gables, the whole lot painted in a wild combination of candy hues. Its new status as a UNESCO world heritage site is richly deserved.

Just as you become accustomed to this scene across the water from your chosen bar, vast liners slide through the neck of the harbour, maybe twice the height of any building on land. A whole urban vista gets wiped from view in a smooth, thrilling eclipse. Cruise ships suddenly moor up to disgorge their passengers, and the town takes on dolls’ house proportions. It’s one of those spectacles that is hard to believe.

Equally surreal is a day trip to the castaway island of Klein Curaçao. We dropped anchor and I swam ashore. White sand beaches bordered a lonely expanse of salt-bleached corals. The edge was visible on all horizons at once. A deserted lighthouse stood tall and peeling; waves crashed up through the underbelly of a rusted shipwreck which sat on the rocks like an eviscerated animal. I felt sorry for the place, being so exposed to the elements, and at the same time impressed because it had nothing whatsoever to hide.

The mood aboard our sailing boat, Insulinde, more than compensated for this poetic desolation. Soca salsa rang out as spicy steaks barbequed on deck and drinks were poured. Turning nut-brown in the sun, staring up through riggings to a sky so blue it vibrated, I decided as we sailed back to Curaçao that this was the Caribbean good life itself.

By the end of the week I was ready for my final experiment - a course in underwater photography. The Habitat’s tutor was both thorough and cheerful when explaining the fateful combinations of diffraction, reflection and the appallingly short reach of underwater flash. I was determined to get really close up, use the edge of the flash beam just as I’d been taught. However once down there this was instantly forgotten. I just wanted to capture the whole experience, me in the midst of shoals of fish.

My slides were developed at once in the dive shop. They weren’t brilliant, but I had one made up as my mouse-mat anyway. Beside me now, it brings back multisensation memories of the beautiful big blue.

Rosie Walford is a freelance travel writer whose work has appeared in the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph.