Of all the lifts they'd had, this was their first in a campervan!
Puerto Lopéz turned out to be a pleasant little seaside town with lots of tourist activities. Paul got to go fishing, although it involved a 5am start. Glad I had seasickness as an excuse to get out of that one! Between four of them, they managed to catch two fish.
Paul got to keep the little one!
No sooner had Paul got back from fishing than it was back in the same boat to go scuba diving! We hadn't dived in about 5 years, so seized the opportunity. We had two dives around an island not far off the coast of Puerto López.
It felt good to be diving again after so long, most of what we'd learnt all those years ago came back quickly. Although a little while in to our first dive, I suddenly found myself getting too buoyant, rising away from Paul and our guide. Before I knew it, I was at the surface not knowing whether Paul or the guide had noticed me disappearing because visibility hadn't been that great. That got me panicking a bit because I wasn't sure if I'd still be able to see them if I went under again. After realising I couldn't see our boat, I figured I should at least go down again to try to see if I could find them. Unbeknownst to me, by this time Paul and the guide had noticed I was missing and were surfacing to look for me.
That meant, of course, I couldn't see either of them when I went back down. By this time I was terrified we were miles away from each other. Would I be able to see them even if we were all at the surface?! Thankfully, when I went back up the second time, they saw me and we were reunited! The current had actually swept me quite far from them. We can't have been separated for more than about 5 minutes, but it felt like aaages! Absolutely terrifying being lost at sea like that - Paul says it gave him quite the scare too.
On the second dive, I felt much more in control of my buoyancy having dusted off the diving cobwebs properly! It was good fun in the end; we saw a turtle, a lagoon ray and lots of other cool sea creatures we can't remember the names of.
After our driving trip, we planned to get on the road again but I must've eaten something dodgy the night before because I found myself with my second bout of food poisoning of 2014. That put paid to any travelling plans, so we checked in to a hotel which let us park in their car park and use the facilities.
This also gave Paul the chance to make dinner with his fish - ceviche! He bought loads of limes, chilli & onion and made his marinade.
Then he set about filleting the fish (with a head torch because the house battery in the van was running low after a few days of not driving).
He quickly realised that you need a much sharper knife (and maybe better lighting!)
Still, he ended up with a small portion of homemade ceviche, which was quite tasty.
