Klein Curacao

Klein Curacao - Little Curacao - lies two hours by boat southeast of the main island: a flat, uninhabited scrap of coral limestone with a long blinding-white beach on its lee side, water in surreal turquoise, and reliable green turtles grazing the shallows. Ashore stand a rusted nineteenth-century lighthouse you can wander into and the bow of a tanker wreck rusting into sculpture on the windward shore. Day boats bring breakfast, barbecue and shade huts; the crossing is open-ocean and lively, which keeps the island from ever being crowded in the resort sense.

History

Klein Curaçao, 1.7 square kilometres of flat land 10 kilometres from Curaçao, has a place in the history of the Atlantic slave trade: before the Dutch West India Company's ships reached the main island, the sick among the enslaved Africans were quarantined here, and the remains of the first quarantine building still stand in the north-west, with graves of those who did not survive in the south. The Company also held licences to hunt the Caribbean monk seal, now extinct, on the island. In 1871 the English mining engineer John Godden found a large phosphate deposit, and from 1871 to 1886 the Dutch government mined it for export to Europe (Wikipedia, Klein Curaçao).

The landscape

• The white lee beach - the long sand strip with turquoise shallows.
• Turtle snorkelling - green turtles feeding close to shore.
• The old lighthouse - the rusting tower open to explore.
• The windward wrecks - ship remains on the rough east shore.

When to go

Trips run year round; the crossing is calmest roughly May to November, and the trade winds make December to April lumpier - seasickness tablets are standard advice regardless. Book ahead in high season; boats fill.

Things to know

The two-hour crossing is genuinely rough on many days and the boats say so - anyone prone to seasickness should medicate or reconsider. There is zero natural shade beyond the operators' huts, no water and no facilities beyond what boats bring; the sun is fierce. The windward side has dangerous currents - swim only on the lee beach. Turtles are wild: no touching, no chasing.

Nearby

Curacao's south-coast beaches and Willemstad.

Key facts