Nature Versus Nurture: A Mother and Daughter Galápagos Cruise

Photo: Aleksandrs Marinicevs

Since my daughter, Kate, was small, animals have been our thing. We have marveled at grizzlies in Denali National Park, in Alaska, at armadillos in Costa Rica. A trip to the Galápagos Islands was something we had dreamed of for years. We read of its swimming iguanas and flightless cormorants, and the sea lions that darken its beaches. Now Kate was seventeen, with her sights set on college, and we were embarking on what I assumed would be our last hurrah. We had done well as travel companions over the years, perhaps better than we'd been doing lately at home. Now we were heading into Melville's "woebegone landscape" on a journey that would separate us from everything we knew—husband and dad, work, school, friends, TV, e-mail, not to mention cell phones. I had no idea how we'd fare. But as we boarded the Zodiac watercraft that would take us to our ship, I recalled one of Darwin's rules of natural selection: geographical isolation leads to adaptation. This is how a new species is born.

The archipelago six hundred miles off the coast of Ecuador has fascinated explorers since its discovery by the Spanish, in 1535. In 1835 Charles Darwin spent a famous five weeks here, then returned to England to develop his theory of evolution. In 1841 a young Herman Melville sailed through on a ship that became the model for the Pequod. In his essays, Melville described the bleak volcanic islands with "neither changes of seasons nor of sorrows." Not much has changed since his time. Although the Galápagos, named for the giant saddle-backed tortoises that once roamed the islands by the hundreds of thousands, were commercialized for tourists, they remained the realm of adventure ships and private yachts until very recently. In fact, our ship, the Xpedition—refurbished by Celebrity Cruises in 2004 and carrying just ninety-four passengers—was marketed as the first luxury cruise in the Galápagos. With staterooms that all face the ocean, sumptuous cuisine and dozens of little extras (including morning mimosas), the maiden voyage promised to be an exciting one for both us and the ship.

As the Zodiac reached our vessel, captain and crew—dressed in crisp whites—hoisted us aboard with the sailor's handshake, a wrist-to-wrist clasp. Waiters greeted us with Champagne flutes and Shirley Temples. Kate and I staggered on shaky sea legs through the plush lounge, past the spacious dining room to our small stateroom with a porthole. I was wondering how we were going to share this minuscule space as she dumped her belongings over both beds, claimed much of the compact bathroom as her own and was out the door. "Hey, Mom," she said, "I'm going to go check out this ship."

"Wait for me," I said. "And you could put away a few of your things." And with a heavy sigh, she did.