Dive Operator Review      Name:  Ocean Encounters - Curaçao  Location:  Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles Date Reviewed:  March 2007 Reviewed By:  Jay Canfield, Tropical Breeze Productions  Overall Rating:  AVOID   Two words regarding this Dive Operator...STAY AWAY!  The best feature Ocean Encounters had to offer was their stunning website, that is what made us choose this operator when we originally booked our dive vacation.  Unfortunately that was a bad mistake on our part...after diving with them one day, we canceled the remaining dives and went with another operator on the island. Our reason for cancelling our remaining dives was fully based on safety concerns.  That is a pretty harsh statement especially considering I am an NAUI Instructor. When we first made our reservations we were told on the phone that we would have to complete a "check-out" dive before we would be permitted to board any of their dive boats, and our experience or diving level had no bearing on this policy.  Odd as that may have seemed to us, we understood their policy and agreed to abide by it. On the first day of diving, they were 40 minutes late picking us up at our hotel and rushed us back to their dive shop at the harbor. We were told that we were holding up the dive boat and had to complete the checkout dive ASAP.  We were hustled through their shop, were given tanks and weights and a dive float and were told to report to the lagoon area just to the right of dock. A representative from Ocean Encounters met us on the sand and told us to swim out about 50 yards to the end of the breakwater and complete our checkout dive.  I asked who was going with us to "check us out" and he replied..."just do it yourself."  This was very odd that the checkout dive was based on the "honor system".  Our only instruction was to go to the end of the breakwater and go to the "left".  When I asked why we needed to drag along a dive float he replied, "boat traffic".  This did not make us feel overly comfortable to say the least.  No other dive briefing was given to us. To make matters worse, as we were preparing to make our beach entry, the same representative came running back to us and said, "wait, wait you need to take someone else with you!".  Thinking he realized a mistake was made and a Divemaster was coming with us, we stopped.  When he got to us on the sand he told us that another diver was coming with us and we were to "check her out too".  He further explained that this other diver hadn't dove in at least 8 years....talk about liability! We were told to hurry again because the dive boat was waiting on us.  So my wife and I with another unknown diver in tow begin to make our checkout dive alone.  We followed the employee's instructions to the tee, we swam out to the end of the breakwater, made our descent and headed "left", while deploying a dive float on a reel.  At the tip of the breakwater where we were told to descend, we bottomed out at 70ft of water! Realizing this was bad information, we turned around and headed back up the channel to shore, dive float and unknown diver in tow. We got back on shore and we heard staff yelling from the dock to hurry up and make our way to the boat.  We dropped our tanks off at the counter and literally had to run to the boat with our wetsuits on carrying the remainder of our gear in our hands! On the boat we found conditions to be very overcrowded and we had to step over other divers to assemble our tanks and gear ourselves with no help from the dive staff on the boat. The two "Divemasters" on the boat were very young, I would be amazed if the they were even 18 years old.  In a few minutes we arrived at the first dive site and got a briefing.  We were told the name of the site by both of them and the way they were carrying on and laughing it seemed they made the name up since they couldn't agree where they actually were. They told us that this would be a "drift dive" due to a strong current and asked if anyone had ever done a drift dive.  From the 22 divers that were on board, there were only 2 other divers besides my wife and myself that raised their hands stating that we had done previous drift dives. So out of 22 divers, 18 divers had never made a previous drift dive.  No other explanation or briefing was given, we were all told to hop in the water and wait for the them to guide us.  Divers started to pile into the water drifting about and then finally our dive guide joined us.  We dropped down to about 50 feet and the pack started following the guide.  We were the closest to the guide on the dive and about 35 minutes into the dive he signaled to me he was low on air and was going up and motioned for us to continue on without him. He never rejoined the group, we were basically left to our own accord.  I was forced to take the group with me and heading down current where we had hoped the boat would be.  We surfaced as a group and the boat eventually came by and picked us up.  I had to yell at the staff to deploy a drift line as it appeared they had no intention on their own of doing so. The second dive was shallower and uneventful.  Back at the dock I complained to the staff in the shop about our experience and they offered no explanation about what we had been through or any apologies.  Based on that, I advised them we would not be diving with them anymore and wished to cancel our remaining dives.  They told us we would have to pay a cancelation penalty for doing so, they did not even offer to waive it or make any concessions against this horrible experience. We paid the cancelation fee and then had to wait nearly an hour at the dive shop until someone was available to drive us back to our hotel. This operator doesn't even deserve a 1 Dive Flag Rating, instead I am giving them a big "AVOID" at all costs.  It's amazing they have not got anyone hurt with the way they run their operation. Reading over this review I find it hard to believe this actually could happen and I was there firsthand to live through this!     Contact Info:  Ocean Encounters    Willemstad, Curaçao   Netherlands Antilles Phone:  (599-9) 461-8131 Email:  info@oceanencounters.com  Website:  www.oceanencounters.com