Early AM, 7 August. Flight to Isabella in 2 groups, we were the first. This was a 6-seat inter-island transfer, to eliminate what would otherwise be a LONG jet boat ride. Isabela is one of the westernmost islands, a geological infant compared to San Cristobal.

The hotel packed our breakfast. Another “sandwich” of bread and minimal contents, set out the night before. The previous day someone questioned whether the skimpy slice of bologna and cheese were “safe”. I suspect we’re a little over-paranoid of these things in the states, and would guess over-processed foods to be the bigger threat to our health. In any case, this sandwich skipped the cheese, which made it essentially a bread sandwich because the meat was so thin. Our travel agent had said the local hotels would “endeavor” to pack us breakfast for early departures. This was an apropos description in so many ways.

I mailed some postcards. As a data point, postcards mailed 7 Aug arrived to their US destinations mid-November. The old whaling system might be faster. (This was still months faster than Peru. Amazon Prime cannot take over the world until it fixes the South American mail system!)

After a non-methodical bag search, we loaded the small plane, which was (I think) a Piper 31.

Back to professions. We had a pilot traveling with us, a former flight instructor. He sat in the co-pilot seat, like it was a check ride. No pressure…

During take-off, those of us not watching instruments or critiquing/testing the pilot in any way noted the rear seat was not attached, and the rear door was not childproof by a long shot. This made Steve, sitting in the back seat unsupervised, a semi-dangerous situation… because his wife was on the later flight and not there to keep his hands and curiosity in check. We joked that he was buckled in to his flotation device strictly for recovery purposes 🙂

Sergio ate a local orange/lemon (there is no direct translation because they are not the same thing) from our breakfast brown bags. Part of me thinks “so much for biological control” but I suspect these plants are probably the same across all inhabited islands and that is why the gate agents didn’t care. But I don’t think their system would have caught it if they weren’t.

We landed on a runway in a lava field. Not glassy obsidian, which is, for whatever reason, what I’d envisioned. It was rough basaltic lava, stark, but beautiful in its own unique way.

After a short ride into Puerto Villamil, known for its packed sand streets, we checked in to the Cormorant Beach House.

The mural on the floor contained over one third of my bird bingo card.

With time to kill until the other group’s arrival, we sat down for “second breakfast”. Then we explored.

When a culture incorporates what makes it unique into a place of worship, it’s worth a stop. The local church had beautiful murals and a unique altar.

A few blocks away, there was construction on the beach. I don’t know its future intended purpose, but I concluded it was a marine iguana sun-bathing platform. There were so many of them and they blended in so well, I was a little worried about stepping on them.

The 2^nd part of our group arrived. We had lunch at a tiki bar place with interesting décor…

And headed to Tintoreras Islet…

Named for the white-tip reef sharks that inhabit the unique channels formed by collapsed lava tubes, its most observable inhabitants were marine iguanas.

Several large specimens lined the path to the dock.

A short boat ride to what I’ll call “Marine Iguana Island”, and they were everywhere. Almost to the point it seemed like they were the island.

I thought maybe they liked this island because it offers great camouflage, but our guide said they don’t really have natural predators after they get very big.

At times it seemed they were playing a game of “the floor is lava” (not too far off the truth), while others seemed to prefer the shade.

This was a popular spot too, apparently for other reasons.

We circled back to a long channel near the edge of the island. It almost looked like a man-made canal. Apparently the sharks like the constant flow of water through the channel–it lets them breathe without the effort of swimming. Our friends the marine iguanas were prevalent here too. I had to use my imagination to see a shark.

Back on the boat we traveled out to some deeper water and jumped in.

This part was a little disorganized. There’s more than one group in the water, and ours tended to spread out in two general directions. This first area was murky and there wasn’t much vegetation on the sea floor. We caught glimpses of sea turtles.

The tide, particularly where the water got shallower, was pushing us closer to shore. It got more colorful, like an aquarium, but with an occasional penguin bulleting past us.

Later it got so shallow I had a hard time keeping my flippers from hitting the bottom. The current was strong enough I just let it push me over this area, at the expense of some good photo ops. I tell myself I took way too many pictures anyway.

We were all back in the boat headed for the dock when a formation of spotted eagle rays swam by us. My little t-rex arms were too short to easily dunk the camera into their realm to get a picture, and I wasn’t fast enough to maneuver more of me over the side.

All-in-all a very fun little adventure, even if the pictures don’t fully document it.

Back in Puerto Villamil, dinner decision-making was somewhat limited by options. By this I mean there was more than one finicky cat in our group with specific wants and/or dislikes that wandered off in different directions, and for a small town, there were enough eating establishments to make this difficult. In the end, and for the record, you can get both Hawaiian pizza and a lobster in at least one restaurant.

Our waiter was very flamboyant. Because two of our party had splintered off for an early meal and were still there, they beckoned the rest of us, and introduced him. He greeted us like we were old friends. But after several visits to our table to help us figure out what we wanted to order, he tried to take our order without writing anything down. He was not prepared. And he was not amused as people constantly changed their orders. End result: a few of our party were frustrated things came out wrong. In the end, Carlos the Waiter seemed deflated, and was probably very happy to see us go.

I think back to an experience at the Denver International Airport being stuck in a McDonald’s line behind some lady wearing a Patagonia jacket trying to order Mac and Cheese for her kid. She stormed off in a huff when they didn’t have it. For this reason and many others, I’m not sure I could work in customer service. If you’re going somewhere that doesn’t meet your dietary peculiarities, please have a backup plan.