Whale watching from Puerto Lopez

I was pretty excited about today – we were going whale watching. I wished that Margaret could have been here to share the experience. We saw minke whales off the Inner Hebrides some years back and it was astonishing. We were lucky to see them, they’re not rare, but they are not always spotted. Off Ecuador in August, you’d be hard pressed not to bump into a humpback whale – there’s a lot more of them, they’re much bigger and a lot of them are showing off in the hope of impressing a mate.

Lucy and Aureliano were not on the trip and Nidia also elected to stay behind (I suspect to help out). Tom, Julia, Emilia and I headed for Puerto Lopez, which is around 30 miles south along the coast. It’s the nearest reasonably sized town and we knew there were trips from there. Some other places were advertising them, but we were not entirely sure they were safe or kosher.

Puerto Lopez isn’t a huge place. The roads are terrible, and I was glad we were in the Montero not the Chevrolet. We headed towards the seafront quite slowly and were soon accosted by a chap who wondered if we wanted to see whales. We weren’t ready to buy just yet (the plan was to head to the front and check out the options). He wasn’t taking no for an answer and when we drove off, he jumped on his bike and rode after us.

I was getting used to the Ecuador sales technique. It’s not so much of a hard sell as a “please buy from me”. Everything is sold at the side of the road and there’s a lot of competition.

This guy was determined. When we slowed down, there he was and when we stopped at the T-junction on the seafront, he was at the driver’s window. He had a laminated information sheet and anything we wanted was possible. What time did the boat leave? 11am was the answer. Well we wanted something a little earlier …

Hang on, he’d get that sorted. A large chap on a small motorcycle arrived, there was a short conversation. No problem, they could leave at 10.30. We were running out of excuses not to go with them, so we said OK, we’d take a look. He leapt off his bike, guided us backwards into a parking slot and took us to his leader. This was a small, seafront office with the walls covered in slightly faded whale posters with promo text in Spanish and English. Whales are the main attraction, but it seems all the boats offer a chance to do some snorkelling and to see the blue-footed boobies as well (it doesn’t matter if you want to see them or not – blue-footed boobies are compulsory). We booked in ($25 each, Julia free) and were asked to wait on the beach. They’d let us know when to head for the jetty and we were quite pleased to hear that we didn’t have to wade out to get in the boat (as predicted by Emilia).

We waited until about 10.45am (so the boat did sail at 11am) and then walked down to the jetty. There were about 20 people booked on and we’d been promised a top deck view. They were as good as their word. Julia was lifted up and we had to climb around the side and up a ladder onto the top deck. The boat was quite small, a bit like the fishing boat in Jaws and powered by a couple of chunky outboard engines.

Julia enjoyed whale watching, but couldn't stay awake
for the whole show.

It was a fairly overcast day, but warm enough, and we were soon speeding out of the harbour into open sea. There were a few other boats about, and we soon spotted some whales. The boats are supposed to stay 50m away from whales and 100m away if a whale has a calf, but the animals were popping up all over. We would see (or hear) a whale blow as it reached the surface, see an expanse of back, a small fin and then it was down again. Often, there were three or more travelling together. After two or three breaths, they would dive; the tail would come up out of the water as the animal went down and that would be it – they’d disappear for some time and resurface well away from us.

The boats seem to work together. There was some mobile phone messages and a couple of boats that were near to us, headed at speed towards Salango Island, just off the shore at the southern end of Puerto Lopez bay. There were a few whales about, but they seemed to be travelling through, not mad keen to put on a show. The other boats had gone further out and I was beginning to think we’d backed the wrong horse when our chap headed out after them. There were some whales on the surface putting on a bit of a show. A couple of large whales would dive, surface with a blow, then roll on their side and slap their massive pectoral fins on the surface of the sea. They might lie there and give the surface three huge slaps before rolling back, diving and then doing the whole thing again.

I guessed this was some kind of display for the lasses, but the internet suggests it’s a means of communication with other whales. Just letting the other folk know they’re about.

A couple of whales can past and there was a baby whale with them, quite clearly visible. It surfaced more regularly and was sticking close by its mother. The babies have quite a high death rate due to attacks by orcas. Apparently, most humpbacks have scars from orca attacks.

Julia had enjoyed seeing the whales, but it got a bit rough in the boat on the open sea and I think she was feeling a little queasy. She did the sensible thing and fell asleep.

We’d been out for a couple of hours, so the tour was nearing its end and we headed back into Puerto Lopez, past Salango to the cliffs at the southern end of the bay. The snorkelling gear was handed out to anyone who wanted it and there were quite a few takers, despite the rather dull day. We stayed up top and got a piece of banana cake from the skipper. Julia had woken up and been given a snack by Emilia, which turned out to taste terrible. We dropped some overboard and it was immediately gobbled up by a shoal of catfish. The rest of the packet followed (it was just like feeding the fish at Crowland) and I felt a bit guilty – all the fish the snorkellers were trying to spot were round our side of the boat being fed.

Just as we finished, a huge humpback whale breached a couple of times on our side of the boat. It was unexpected and quite shocking/spectacular. Tom managed to video it, which was good because I could hardly believe my eyes. These things are massive, they weigh as much as six adult elephants and grow to 16 metres (the big ones are the females) so the power to propel that much body clean out of the water is amazing. It was quite a finale to the whale show!

But the show wasn’t over, there were still the blue-footed boobies to see. These albatrosses nest on very narrow ledges on the cliffs. Their feet are very bright blue. Not for the first time, I wished I’d brought my binoculars with me.