WILLEMSTAD - Dive right into Curaçao’s featured dive site for January, called Duane’s Release located on the West End of Curaçao.  Following the rugged and ancient shoreline southeast past the popular scuba diving and snorkeling sites of Mushroom Forest and The Blue Room you will find Duane’s Release sandwiched between the diving favorites of Rediho and Playa Hulu. 

Duane’s Release has characteristics of both: lush growth covers a gentle slope thick with sea rods, star and brain corals, oversized orange elephant-ear sponges and gorgonians. The folds of the reef are filled with macro critters. Octopus, eagle rays, arrow crabs, Peterson shrimp in their corkscrew anemones, and eels may be encountered. Duane would have been thrilled to dive there repeatedly. Fittingly, the site is prolific with angelfish. With a slight current, divers drift along as if carried by an unseen hand.

The story behind the name is about a diver named Duane Hendrix who loved diving, touched many lives, but died an untimely death in 2004 at the age of 21. An avid diver and traveler, Duane loved the Caribbean and wanted his ashes spread in the ocean where he would travel the entire world. Friends at a West End dive shop listened and did one better: they found a unique unnamed site and put in a mooring ball, registering it as an official dive site in 2005. Family and friends made it sacred by “releasing” his ashes there. A memorial plaque sits by the mooring pin, although slowly being covered by sand and coral.  Family and friends clean it periodically, knowing one day it will be reclaimed by the sea.

When you're in Curacao, be sure to explore this boat diving site as a tribute to a man whose short life impacted many.

Curaçao’s healthy coral reefs are attracting all kinds of marine life visitors, and hopefully more human visitors now, too.  So, when deciding to come to Curaçao, please do not limit your experience to either the East or the West.  Discover all of Curaçao and the incredible magic that lies just below the waterline, to uncover a Must-Dive vacation destination of 2019 where conservation truly meets your next Caribbean adventure!

Don’t wait, Dive into Spring and "feel it for yourself"!  Visit Dive Travel Curaçao and take a giant stride into 2019, plunging yourself into our warm turquoise waters, but be prepared for your senses to be overwhelmed by a 360-degree kaleidoscope of intense color and abundant life!