Blue Room Day Sail

The Blue Room is one of Curaçao's quiet wonders — a low sea cave near Westpunt, on the far north-west coast, where light entering from beneath the surface fills the chamber with an electric, luminous blue. You swim in under a low rock arch, so it is reached only from the water, by boat or with a guide; there is no road to it. The day sail is built around it, paired with the leeward coast's clearest beaches and the reef of the Mushroom Forest, named for the mushroom-shaped coral heads along the bottom.

We leave Spanish Water and sail west along the leeward coast, the trades on the quarter and the dry, cactus-and-divi-divi landscape sliding past to starboard. The morning's first stop is one of the great west-coast beaches — Playa Porto Mari, with its double reef, or Cas Abao — for clear water and a snorkel before the day boats arrive. From there we work up toward Westpunt and the Blue Room itself, timing the swim into the cave for the calmest light of the day.

The Mushroom Forest, off the coast near Westpunt, is the snorkel and dive site that pairs with the cave — shallow coral heads shaped like mushrooms, abundant fish, and the clearest visibility on the island. Lunch is on deck at anchor in a sheltered cove, with a swim again after. Divers can arrange to dive both the Mushroom Forest and the deeper sites here with a local operator. We sail back to Spanish Water on the afternoon breeze, the long leeward coast unrolling astern.