SAN CRISTÓBAL, Ecuador — Ceci Guerrero was all business as she covered marine safety and shipboard rules in our first briefing aboard the M/Y Eric at San Cristóbal , the easternmost island in the Galápagos. It was early Sunday afternoon. “The first time we’ll know anything about the outside world will be at noon on Wednesday,” Guerrero said, when we might get a cellphone signal when the ship stopped to refuel. “Then there’s Internet in town when we get to Santa Cruz on Friday.”

Guerrero seemed a little apologetic, but the enforced disconnect was music to our ears. We don’t take cruises often, but sometimes a ship is the best (or only) way to reach a remote place. We wanted to focus on the ocean and islands around us, where Darwin’s theory of evolution is manifest in the beaks of the finches and the congested snorts of salt-spitting marine iguanas. Visiting the Galápagos feels like witnessing the eighth day of creation. We had no desire to be constantly reminded of what we had left behind.