Galapagos Now

Climbing into four sea kayaks, we push off. It takes almost two hours to paddle up the west side of Baltra. A small motorboat called a panga follows with most of our gear. Tomala, my kayak partner, tells me how he got his bachelor's degree before he was 18 and was finishing his PhD over the Internet. Trying to get him to paddle slowly and evenly, I wish his kayak skills were as impressive as his résumé. Eventually I give up and lose myself in the rhythm, watching as sea turtles surface in the bottle-green water.

We camp on Salinas Beach, dotted with driftwood and black mangroves. "I first visited the Galapagos by boat in 1993 and immediately thought it would be the ideal location for sea kayaking," Grubb says as blue-footed boobies dive for fish. "I remember almost feeling trapped on board the yacht, thinking how fantastic it would be to paddle at leisure and camp on a beach."

ROW organized its first exploratory kayak trip in the Galapagos in 1996 and had been trying to arrange permits for camping ever since. "We were getting nowhere with permits from the park service," Grubb says. "We even offered to clean beaches of garbage that locals left."

He eventually secured permission to camp on Baltra from the Ecuadoran military, which controls the island. Grubb also discovered a handful of beaches on other islands classified as "recreational," for locals' use -- some 25,000 people live on the islands -- where camping would also be permitted.

Motorized boat tours, while highly structured, are wonderful in their own right -- I've been on two already. The feeling, though, of being able to paddle around, pull up your kayak, wander around a bit and set up camp -- just hang out -- was completely new.

It was like being in the Louvre after everyone else had gone home, pondering the "Mona Lisa" alone and hearing the echo of your footsteps down the hallways.

Hot Volcano

The next morning, great blue herons stalk breakfast among lava rocks uncovered by the tide, and a group of brown pelicans dives on a shoal of sardines. Whenever one surfaces, bill bulging, a smaller noddy tern lands on its head, hoping to dislodge a meal.

The sun emerges as we paddle two hours up the shore of Baltra toward tiny North Seymour Island, where Tomala guides us around a short loop trail.

In November, the dry season, the scrubby vegetation looks more dead than alive. Yellow land iguanas the size of beagles munch the pads of prickly pear cactuses in the underbrush. Farther on is a frigate bird rookery, where glossy black males inflate the crimson pouches on their throats to attract females. The trail ends on a rocky beach populated by marine iguanas, the world's only seagoing lizard.

Sea lions are thick along the shore, and after a quick lunch on the panga we slip into the water to join them. My ill-fitting wet suit leaks chilly water, but I soon forget as a pair of young sea lions swim out to inspect us. Equal parts cat, dog and fish, they contort their bodies into impossible angles as they swerve up close and zoom away.

Tired arms make the paddle back to the campsite seem longer than five miles.

After a night in a hotel in Puerto Ayora on nearby Santa Cruz Island, the largest settlement in the archipelago, we hire a speedboat to Puerto Villamil, the only settlement on Isabela Island, the largest in the archipelago. The two-hour, spray-soaked ride shows that kayaking among the major islands would be out of the question.