Porto Marie Beach or the Valley is a set of two excellent parallel reefs with a canyon in between.

Name Dive Site:	Porto Marie, Valley
Depth:	5-20m (16-65ft)
Inserted/Added by:	lars, © Author: Lars Hemel
Rated:	Rated not yet
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Porto Marie Beach is a great narrow and sometimes crowded stretch of white beach. There is a large car-park, a small entrance fee, a restaurant and there are a few large umbrellas and trees that create some shade. Access to the water is easy; its white sand creating the pretty blue-greenish colored waters you know from Caribbean pictures.

Divers are interested in the two reefs just offshore parallel to the beach separated from each other by a 100 meter wide sandy canyon. Both offer a shallow reef on top (3-6 meter) with a short 10-15 meter drop-off. It is along the short wall most divers spend most time, doing their safety stop on top of the reef or in the sand near the beach. There are plenty of hard corals, staghorn coral, brain coral and thousands of small and larger fish. Schoolmasters, parrot fish, pufferfish, eels and several kinds of silver baitfish are common. Look out in the blue for larger rays and turtles. Porto Marie Beach or the Valley as it is sometimes called is a great dive site and one typical for Curacao.

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Name: curious2dive

Porto Marie, also named the Valley, starts with a sandy plateau at 4 meter offshore Port Marie beach. From there it drops to 18 meter to the next plateau, the wall comes up again to 13 meter and then drops into the abyss. The outskirts of the reef are beautifully overgrown with a big variety of hard and soft corals. Watch your depth when you cross the canyon on the outer reef and fly. Large school of rainbow runners and bar jack will accompany you during this dive. Hawksbill turtles and Eagle rays are no exception on this dive.

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After my snorkeling adventure at the TugBoat a few days ago, I was not expecting much of the reefs just offshore Curacao. Porto Marie Beach turned out to be great. I was relaxed; setting up the gear went easy, I remembered everything well and at the time of diving we were the only ones in the water. My dive guide was busy removing a very long fishing line, and he was interested in lion fish, which had just been discovered and are a danger to the juvenile fish living of the reef. He was wearing a sharp stick to kill the lion fish with. We didn’t found any so luckily no kills today. I agree on keeping their numbers under control as they don’t have any natural predators, but I doubt killing them just because they are there is right.

We saw a scorpion fish, well camouflaged, some sort of eel which I mistook for a sea snake and two really huge pufferfish. Although you might not be blown away by the colors of the coral, you will be because of the amount of fish. Thousands of smaller coral reef fish and bait fish were surrounding you in groups. Parrot fish were eating from the reef.

Take a look at all the pictures!