The great thing about traveling with kids is that it opens up doors for you that might not be possible otherwise. Tate and Cora are masters at making friends wherever they go, and Puerto Lopez has been no exception.

Courtesy of Michelle Windmoeller

Steve Windmoeller with a blowfish he caught in Puerto Lopez, Ecuador.

Within two nights of being here, they found a group of kids to play soccer with on the beach. For several nights, they had a steady game, but it got more and more disorganized. Now there is a nightly pretend battle with stick guns and lots of running around and yelling. Cora and her buddies, Michael and Junior, fill empty bottles with sand and have quite a collection. We will miss these new friends when we leave, and I am sure I’ll always wonder what they are up to.

One of Puerto Lopez’s claims to fame is that it’s an excellent location to witness the summer whale migration. Nearly 1,000 humpback whales pass by the coast of Ecuador as they head toward Antarctica. For this reason, Puerto Lopez has several boat tour operators; the most interesting has to be Winston Churchill.

Winston - surely his name is a gimmick to draw in tourists - has a large, easy smile and a book full of handwritten references from past customers. That was enough for us, so we booked a sea fishing excursion for the next afternoon.

We started the afternoon snorkeling but did not see much. We didn’t have much luck fishing, either. I began to worry that it was going to be a disappointing trip, but once Winston moved the boat around, we started to have success.

Everyone caught several blowfish, called "globo pez" in Ecuador. We also caught some flat red fish and another type that had a lot of spots. The blowfish were the most fun; the boat pilot knew how to stoke their stomachs and make them blow up really big.

The fish that were big enough to eat were kept to make seviche. Seviche is a popular dish here made with raw fish, lime juice, onions and whatever else is on hand. Winston and the pilot made it right there on the boat. In fact, I saw them mixing up the marinade in the same bucket they had used earlier to scoop excess water out of the bottom of the boat - no joke. The New Zealanders that were with us noticed it, too, but we all quietly agreed to try it anyway.

Turns out seviche is very good, and we ate all of it. When you’re in Ecuador on a boat with a man named Winston Churchill, you just have to go with the flow.

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