Kenepa Grandi (Grote Knip)

Beaches & CovesBanda Abou, Kuzeybatı Curaçao,Curaçao

The most photographed cove on Curaçao, a bowl of white coral sand below the plantation where an enslaved man led the island's 1795 revolt.

September·Peaking now

Sep–Nov

The trade winds fall to their yearly minimum, the cove flattens to glass and the sea peaks near 29°C. Snorkelling over the headland reefs is at its clearest and the cliff-jump ledge most tempting. The short rainy season brings brief showers, heaviest in November.

Year-round The turquoise cove, the white coral sand, the cliff-jump ledge and the hills of cactus and divi-divi trees are here every day, and the free beach never closes. What changes through the year is the wind, and the sea's temperature and clarity.

Kenepa Grandi is the most photographed cove on Curaçao, and the house on the hill above it is where the island's revolt against slavery began. The bay is a bowl of white coral sand with dry cactus hills around it and water banded from green to deep blue. The postcard is taken from the lookout beside the clifftop car park, a few steps from the car, and most people photograph it there before they ever reach the sand. Down on the beach the middle of the bay is plain sand and the life is at the edges. A few strokes towards either rocky arm and coral heads, sponges and parrotfish come up underneath you, close enough to watch from the surface; strong swimmers carry on to the reef off the mouth. On the rocks a ledge some five metres up is the unofficial diving board, and the water under you is deep and clear. The name is a fruit. Kenepa is Papiamentu for the Spanish lime, a green thing no bigger than a grape, sold in bunches at the roadside, whose brittle skin cracks between your teeth onto tart salmon-coloured pulp around one big seed. The trees still stand behind the sand and throw most of its shade. On the slopes behind them every divi-divi leans the same way, its crown combed flat to the southwest by a trade wind that blows out of the east-northeast almost every day. The island tells you where southwest is without a compass. At weekends the cove fills with island families, coolers and speakers and children in the shallows, and it stops being a postcard and becomes a neighbourhood. The plantation house above is Landhuis Kenepa, which Tula and some fifty others walked away from on 17 August 1795, and it is now his museum. He was not asking for the estate or for revenge. He asked for three things: no more collective punishment, no more being worked on Sundays, and the right to buy his clothes from someone other than his own master. The colony granted him none of them.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Some of the shade trees here are manchineel — the poisonous ones carry a red band or a warning sign. Never shelter under one in rain, and leave the little green fruit alone.
Come on a weekday morning if you want it empty — cruise groups roll in from late morning, and at weekends the sand belongs to island families until dark.
Save it for the afternoon — the bay opens to the west, so the sun only drops straight into the water late in the day, which is when the turquoise turns electric.
Boats cross the mouth of the bay — divers are asked to fly a surface marker here, and snorkellers do best hugging the rocky sides rather than striking out across open water.
Loungers and umbrellas are rented down on the sand — but the drink and snack stands come and go, so bring your own water if you plan to stay the afternoon.

Things to do

1
Follow the reef, then jump from the ledge
The middle of the bay is plain sand; the life is at the edges. Swim a few strokes toward either rocky arm and coral heads, sponges and parrotfish appear beneath you, close enough to watch from the surface. Strong swimmers carry on to the reef standing off the mouth of the bay. On those same rocks a ledge about five metres up is Kenepa's unofficial diving board — the water below is deep and clear, but watch where the locals go in before you follow.
2
Look down on the whole crescent from the clifftop
The lookout beside the clifftop car park is where Curaçao's postcard is taken: the entire cove at once, white sand against water banded turquoise to deep blue, dry cactus hills wrapped around it. It costs nothing but a few steps from the car, and most people photograph it before they ever reach the sand.
3
Take the beach at Curaçaoan pace on a weekend
Saturdays and Sundays the cove fills with island families — coolers, speakers, small children in the shallows, teenagers on the rocks — and the beach stops being a postcard and starts being a neighbourhood. Claim a patch of shade under the kenepa trees and let the afternoon go.
4
Walk up to the plantation house where the revolt began
A short climb above the beach stands Landhuis Kenepa, the estate Tula and some fifty others walked away from on 17 August 1795. It is now Museo Tula, and it tells the revolt's story from the side of the people who started it — the reason the beach below is more than a pretty bay.

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Nearby

99 km