Today, Wednesday, we headed up to Westpunt, and tried out Grote Knip. It’s a lovely beach, apparently used quite often for postcards of Curacao. It is a long beach, with beautiful white sand. There are palapas and tables and it’s very popular with locals. There is a large parking lot, so you know it gets busy on the weekends! There were not many people when we were there, only about ten.

It looked like there would be very good snorkeling along the sides, although in the middle we knew there would little to see, since most fish don’t hang around the white sand. The water looked very inviting indeed! It’s easy to get in, as the sand slopes gently down in the water. The water was a bit “cloudy” from the sandy bottom. Heading to the left, I saw a rather large barracuda riding shotgun on a school of fish. The visibility was not great, and the snorkeling was mediocre.

This is a great beach for swimming.

I’ve had a couple of people wonder how you say “Curacao” so I’ll try to explain it phonetically. Most Europeans say it “Cure-A-Sow” and that’s acceptable. Far better than the women at the New Jersey airport who announced our flight to “Crack-Cow”. The second “c” is never hard, always like an “s’. However, the locals spell their island Korsou and they say the name of their island Cur-sew. It’s done quickly with no rolling of the “r”.  So there you go. If you want to appear like an in-the-know local, go with the two syllable version Cur-sew, but if you want to be spotted as a tourist, or a European,  say it in the three syllable version “Cure-A-Sow”. (Note the local way is Cur – like a dog…. the Euro way is Cure like in medicine.)

We headed back towards Willemstad, the capital city, and stopped at Playa Lagun. It’s a small cove, with an easy entrance to the water. We saw some neat fish, but most of the best fish viewing is down too far for snorkelers. The visibility was fine, just that the fish were 20-30 feet down for the most part. When we entered the water, we headed to the right and saw some fun things – the usual suspects.

We had a brief lunch then headed to Caracasbaii, where we’ve been before and can expect lots of fun things. It didn’t disappoint. The wreck is so easy to swim to, and there is always plenty of action to see.

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We had dinner at the Rib Factory. It’s a small eatery, that is full of locals, for lunch and dinner. It does a booming take out service as well. They have a small deck that has ten tables or so, and a few more inside, with air conditioning. We sat out on the deck in warm evening air. I had the chicken fajitas – not a big rib fan – and they were excellent. Mike had the ribs and he said they were very good. Fall off the bone tender, with a great sauce – you could choose from three different kinds. Service was fun and good. Prices were reasonable. Would definitely eat here again.

This is a brief movie of Grote Knip, the first beach we visited today.