Sail to the exotic Galapagos Islands with Herman Melville, author of Moby-Dick. Let History and Legend, Fiction and Fact, Myth and Mystery swirl around you as you enter "The Encantadas," a unique island world stretching along our planet's Equator.�� ~ Discover teeming seabird rookeries, stark volcanic landscapes, and world famous giant tortoises . . .�� ~ Meet buccaneers and explorers, colonists and castaways, whalers and naturalists . . .��� ~ Explore these Enchanted Isles with one of America's greatest writers . . .�� ~ Enrich your once-in-a-lifetime visit to . . . The Galapagos Islands.�Travelers have been arriving in the Galapagos Islands since at least 1535. While naturalist Charles Darwin made these volcanic peaks famous, Spanish explorers, English buccaneers, American whalers, Ecuadorian colonists, and a United States President all put in appearances here over the centuries.�Herman Melville was one such visitor. He first glimpsed the Galapagos Islands as a young seaman on the whaler Acushnet out of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Years later, after the failure of his novel Moby-Dick, he tried to regain his lost popularity with the reading public by writing a series ten of magazine sketches he called "The Encantadas or Enchanted Isles," recalling the strange worlds he found in the Galapagos archipela