Our last snorkeling experience during our week in Curaçao was at Directors Bay and it was a fantastic snorkeling experience for the morning of our last day in Curaçao.
We first saw Directors Bay on the evening after our full day excursion to Klein Curaçao because it is not far from Jan Thiel. It was beautiful as the sun set and we knew we needed to squeeze in a snorkeling session at this location before leaving Curaçao.
Directors Bay is very close to Tugboat Beach and the same dirt road from Caracasbaai takes one the fork where turning right goes to Tugboat Beach and turning left goes to Directors Bay.
Although we did not plan it this way, we ended up bookending our week in Curaçao with two of the better snorkeling experiences (Tugboat Beach and Directors Bay). After starting the trip with Tugboat Beach, we should not have been surprised at how outstanding the Directors Bay snorkeling was.
From the parking area, there are some steps down to the rocky beach.
The next photographs show how rocky the beach is. Although this might not appeal to those looking for a sandy beach, it is better for snorkeling and the water visibility, which was outstanding on this morning after an evening rain storm.
The next photograph shows how clear that water is even close to the shore.
The structure seen protruding above the surface is much larger under the surface.
There is a pretty steep drop-off not far from the shore (I imagine this makes for fantastic diving).
When facing the water from the beach, there are some more ruins of a structure on the far left that provides more interesting snorkeling opportunities.
There is more interesting snorkeling in the area of the large rocks on that same left side.
As clear as the water visibility was and as good as the snorkeling was in all of these spots, the best snorkeling of all was near the cliff wall in which the vehicles were parked. This was like swimming and snorkeling in an aquarium!
As the GoPro photographs show, the snorkeling near the wall under the parking area is absolutely fantastic! We didn't want to leave. It was amazing that we could see such sights from a beach!
Before left to head to Hato Cave and the airport to return home, we enjoyed seeing this bird of prey on the cliff overlooking that aquarium-like snorkeling environment.
We cannot recommend highly enough Directors Bay for snorkelers and divers. With its relative proximity to Willemstad, it would be a great destination even for people with just a day in port while on a cruise. In fact, both Tugboat Beach and Directors Bay could be done in the same half-day excursion and one could likely even swim from Directors Bay around the corner of rocks and into Tugboat. There are no services at this beach, but there is no admission charge to access it and we saw only a few other people when we visited.
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