The reason we stayed here for our first week in Curacao was that it was on the water with direct access to on-site snorkeling while being within walking distance to downtown Willemstad. There was a protective breakwater enclosing a small area with metal steps leading down for access. The thing I wasn't aware of and therefore didn't take into account is that there are almost permanent 15-20 knot winds blowing along this coastline. The waves breaking along the shallows really stir up the visibility near shore. Even in the small protected area, visibility was usually less than 10'. You had to swim out to where the water was about 20' deep for it to finally clear up. Basically, this doesn't make for great snorkeling since by the time you swim out far enough in the choppy waves for it to clear, it's too deep to see much unless you are constantly diving down. We ended up only snorkeling here a few times. On one day, the waves must have been lower during the night since the water was clearer than normal. That was the day I took these photos. Inside the breakwater there was almost no coral, but there were some fish, small eels and an octopus all a few feet deep. Outside the breakwater, the sandy bottom sloped down with a few coral heads to some coral restoration projects on metal frames. Outside the West side of the breakwater, there was an outfall pipe covered in big cement sacks leading out deeper (I think I found the end of it 80' deep while scuba diving). The shallow end of this outfall was probably the best snorkeling area since it was close to the surface and provided a solid surface for some coral. There were a decent amount of fish around it and we saw another octopus.
