We had included the coastal town of Puerto Lopez in our itinerary for two reasons. First of all, we weren’t going to be able to see the Galapagos Islands on this trip to Ecuador because it is recommended that you have at least 4-5 days at a minimum to devote to exploring them and we didn’t have enough time for that unfortunately, and additionally, the cost for a visit there is quite significant. A compromise was a visit to the “Poor Man’s Galapagos," aka Isla de la Plata, which is just an hour’s boat ride from Puerto Lopez, and has much of the same bird life as the more famous archipelago, including the iconic blue footed boobies! Secondly, Scott would be able to dive here.

So early Saturday morning, after a breakfast at our Hosteria Mandala, Scott headed a few blocks into town via the beachfront sidewalk that paralleled the shore, for an all day dive. I was on my own for the day and entertained myself by walking on the beach and then eventually laying a towel down on the sand, alternating between reading and people-watching. Mid-day when my stomach announced that it was hungry, I wandered into town for lunch and decided to try out one of the gaudy fluorescent lit open-air beachside tourist traps, only because the drink menu was intriguing and the obnoxious loud music hadn’t started up yet in an attempt to attract the dinner crowd. With my toes in the sand and looking out over the Ensenada de Salango bay, I enjoyed an umbrella drink and some calamari and plantains. Satisfied from my lunch I headed back to our hotel for an afternoon of the same, with the addition of some hammock time on the front porch of our bungalow, the Pulpo.

Scott got back late afternoon and came and found me on the beach. Throughout the day I had observed a canopy being set up for a beach wedding ceremony, and from afar as we watched the sunset, we happened to catch the ceremony. As we were walking back to the Pulpo, the wedding participants called out to Scott to see if he would take their pictures. They picked the right guy- Scott hammed it up with them by playing his favorite trick of agreeing to take a picture and then pretending to run away with their phone which they found hilarious, and happily fulfilled the role of enthusiastic wedding photographer.

We ventured off the beaten path and into the town proper for dinner and found a small nondescript restaurant, La Ramada, with local prices rather than tourist prices. Our meal was lovely and we got a laugh when we ordered beers and the proprietor popped over next door to the convenience store to get it.

Over dinner Scott told me about his dive: The actual dive trip was light on participants, just Scott and a young French couple, but they shared the boat ride out to the dive site with a group of tourists that were heading to Isla de la Plata to explore and hike for the day. The group was taking the same trip that we would be taking the next day. About 20 minutes into the boat ride, one of the guides realized they had forgotten the lunches back at the boat launch, so they had to turn around and head back to retrieve them. After getting them, they carried on, and eventually the boat dropped off the tourists at Isla de la Plata and then the divers headed out for their first dive.

Their first site was Punta el Faro and it was 38 minutes long at a max depth of 63 feet. When they surfaced, and were headed to their next dive, at Bahia Drake, Scott had to point out to the divemaster that they actually needed more surface interval time. He was trying to hurry them along so that they wouldn’t be late to collect the hikers… Puerto Lopez’s tourist activity had come screeching to a halt a few weeks prior because of the cartel violence around the holidays, and this blended trip was an attempt to get it back up and going again but added an insane amount of complexity to the whole day. Luckily he heeded Scott’s advice and when they had waited a safe amount of time, had a lovely dive at Bahia Drake that lasted 55 minutes at a max depth of 27 feet.

Scott ranked these dives as one of his top 5 because of the abundant and beautiful sea life that he got to see. He reported that the coral was healthy and he got to see countless huge schools of fish. Some of the highlights were: yellow pufferfish, several green moray eels, blue sea stars, and multiple large sea turtles (at one point one of them actually bumped into him!). The most exciting moment of the day for him was when he caught a glimpse of a tiger snake eel. At first he thought it was a sea snake, but eventually figured out what it actually was, having fallen for the eel’s clever guise of looking almost exactly like the poisonous snake. He was excited about the pictures he took because the new red filter for his Go Pro made the pics look much clearer and the colors more accurately depicted.

After dinner we stopped into a grocery store to top off our snack supplies before walking back to the hotel.