We cruise to Cerro Brujo, a long stretch of powder white sand that offers excellent swimming and sea kayaking. On Espa ola Island we explore Punta Su rez, which harbors a wealth of land birds and seabirds, including many varieties of boobies, gulls, herons, doves and finches. A blowhole on the basaltic shore spews a vaporous plume of seawater more than 75 feet into the air. On Santa Cruz Island we visit the Charles Darwin Research Station to learn more about the amazing profusion of life that inspired Darwin. From one island to the next there are variations within species and breeds, including 13 kinds of finch, seven types of lava lizard and 15 kinds of tortoise.
Scientists explain the current breeding programs for the giant tortoises and land iguanas.
We cruise to Genovesa Island and make our final stop at Darwin Bay, a birder's paradise of gulls, terns, frigates, petrels and boobies. Thousands of storm petrels, preyed upon by short-eared owls, inhabit the open lava fields at the end of the trail. Since its discovery by Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen on Easter Sunday 1722, this isolated bit of land, with its mysterious collection of prehistoric monuments, has been the focus of intense debate. The island's tall brooding figures, some weighing up to 250 tons and many 30 to 50 feet in height, were carved from dense volcanic tuff, transported for miles to the coast and raised onto great stone altars called ahu . How its native people first arrived and what transpired over the centuries is a puzzle that is still being unraveled.