Cruising the Galápagos Islands — Our choice of Lindblad Expeditions was not the result of research, though my wife, Fern, and I are librarians.

Lindblad was the cruise line recommended in an Outside Magazine "trips of a lifetime" article. The Web site looked interesting, and we read good things about the cruise line on some travel sites.

RICHARD HALLMAN/Staff (ENLARGE)

Lindblad Expeditions' MS Islander, with 24 cabins, traveled among the Gal?pagos Islands mostly at night, giving passengers a chance to see more of the archipelago and its creatures. It also often traveled between meals during the day.

RICHARD HALLMAN (ENLARGE)

One night on the MS Islander, the cooks prepared a traditional Ecuadorean feast. Those spectacles on the pig (center) are an example of a different tradition: cruise ship silliness.

That was it, the total of our research and how we landed on the cruise in January. It's certainly not the cheapest way to visit the Galápagos, but it's a great mix of luxury cruising and earnest eco-tourism.

Lindblad recommends books to read before you go, and we dutifully bought but didn't read the recommended literature. It didn't take us long to realize that before our arrival, all we knew about the Galápagos was "big turtles."

Even that turned out to be wrong: They're tortoises, though the Galápagos is home to many sea turtles, and we saw them in the water and on beaches. A large sea turtle swam beneath us while we were snorkeling one day, unconcerned by our presence, like pretty much all the birds, mammals, fish and reptiles we encountered. The largest predator in the Galápagos is the Galápagos hawk, so many creatures on the islands have no natural enemies.

Our ship, the MS Islander, was small for a cruise ship, with 24 cabins. With about 48 passengers, you get to know your shipmates. It happened that more than half our shipmates were University of California-Berkeley alumni. They were there under the tutelage of Vince Resh, a UC-Berkeley entomologist and Darwin groupie.

Lindblad cruises have a strong educational component, and we heard talks by Lindblad naturalists and Resh while on board. Whenever we were off the ship, we were accompanied by at least one naturalist, usually more, and it was their job to educate us about the flora and fauna and to make sure that we trod lightly on their land and sea. That included stepping over or around lounging iguanas or sea lions.

A typical island outing consisted of walking maybe a couple of hundred feet and then stopping for a brief exposition by one of the ship's four naturalists. They were all native Ecuadoreans, including two native Galápageans I like to think of as my new best friends whom I'll never see again.

A great advantage of being on a ship is that you can cover more distance. Our ship traveled most nights and often between meals during the day. Not counting Baltra, where our cruise began and ended, we visited nine islands, although two of those we merely buzzed in pangas, the local word for the Zodiac-type rafts made famous by the Cousteau dynasty.

Days went like this: Some mornings, before real breakfast, we got up around 6 for pre-breakfast landings, after coffee and snacks in the lounge. Then back for breakfast and afterward, some sort of excursion, all of which began in a panga, whether the activity was a cruise, snorkeling or landing for a hike. After lunch, another excursion of some kind. Then a recap before dinner, which might include photos shot by our naturalists or tales of what was seen by passengers.

Most days we visited more than one island. If that sounds like "if it's Tuesday, this must be Floreana," we never felt rushed and, in particular, the walks were slow, though sometimes rough.

As for life on board, it wasn't a floating amusement park; we had no pool or even hot tub. There was a masseuse, though, and plenty of lounge chairs and a few hammocks. The large lounge, which included a bar, is where lectures and socializing took place.

Although 168 feet long, the Islander still felt like a ship. It pitched and rolled, and there was a basket of motion sickness pills available in a common area. Several passengers wore patches throughout the trip and a few spent a long day or two inside their cabins.

About those cabins: Ours was at least twice as large as a room we stayed in near Times Square in New York several years ago and featured a sofa, desk and plenty of closet space. The bathroom was snug, though, and shaving in a moving ship was a new and challenging experience.

After a week on board, we knew a little bit more about the Galápagos. We know that there are no seals in the Galápagos, only sea lions, and that sea lions have ear flaps and seals don't. We know what the word "endemic" means, and how volcanoes formed and continue to change the islands. We know that marine iguanas come in different colors on different islands, and that it depends on what kind of algae they eat. We know that Charles Darwin spent very little time in the Galápagos, about five weeks, out of a five-year trip.

Back in Atlanta, more than a month later, I'm on Page 158 of the Lindblad-recommended "The Voyage of the Beagle," Darwin's book about his trip. He gets to the Galápagos on Page 332. Fern read that part before the trip. And yes, we saw giant tortoises.