Anything can happen
During the second Curacao Dive Festival in 2007 one of the keynote speakers, Ty Sawyer, editor of Sport Diver Magazine, told the audience what he loved about Curacao. One of the things he mentioned is the feeling that "anything can happen". And he is right.
When we were diving at Boca Sami at our normal depth of around 20 meters (70 feet) I saw something white shimmering beneath me. My buddy and I decided to check it out and we found this sailing boat sitting on the bottom at 42 meters (140 feet) with the "wind" still blowing in its sails.
A few days earlier there had been a sailing contest called "Sami Sail". It is a yearly recurring event. Apparently this year something unexpected happened and one of the boats sank. This didn't make it into the news papers, so we didn't expect to find anything special during this dive. Luckily I had my camera with me, as I do on almost every dive (you never know what happens) so I was able to take this shot. The picture made it into one of the local newspapers under the heading "Underwater Sailing" and in a newspaper in The Netherlands. And, as my buddy pointed out to me later that week, a picture of this boat, the Lagun, taken during a Sami Sail race event some years before, was included in a book about architecture in Curacao.
Two weeks later we decided to check if the boat was still there but it wasn't. Probably it was lifted with the help of the nearby Dive Operator, Eric Wederfoort.
If you want something very special when you are here, you should make an appointment for a dive on the archaeological wreck of the SS Mediator. This ship is older than the Titanic and can be easily reached from shore. It is located in the harbor entrance. That means that you cannot dive this wreck on your own. You need to make an appointment with Stimana, the foundation for Marine Archaeology in the Netherlands Antilles. There is almost every Sunday a guided dive on this wreck. It is something completely different from all the other dives on the island and your stay here is not complete without a dive on this wreck.