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Of the five islands that make up the remote northern group, only Genovesa is open to visitors. The tiny islands of Darwin and Wolf, at the far northwestern reaches of the archipelago, and Marchena some 90km north of Santa Cruz, are occasionally visited by scuba divers, but only for offshore exploration. Genovesa, however, lying approximately 95km northeast of Santa Cruz, can be reached after a night of sailing, which is well worth it, as it's one of the best bird islands in the Galapagos, home to the world's largest colony of red-footed boobies. Captains align solar-powered beacons on GENOVESA to find the safe route into Darwin Bay , formed by a pincer of imposing cliffs rising to 25m over the sea, the remnants of a large sunken caldera. A wet landing onto a small, coarse-coral beach fringed with saltbush brings you face-to-face with masked boobies, frigate birds, swallow-tailed gulls, mockingbirds and red-footed boobies . Birds rule the roost here; there are no introduced species, and very few reptiles. The marine iguanas on the rocks are among the smallest in the islands, and the absence of land iguanas and giant tortoises means that Genovesa's prickly pear cacti , free from their major predators, grow with soft spines. As a trail heads west along the shore past red-footed boobies, you'll also see great and magnificent frigate birds nesting in saltbush and red mangroves, with lava herons and Galapagos doves hopping around the rocks searching for food. Yellow-crowned night herons loiter near the tide pools watching for chances to snatch wrasse, blenny and damselfish . Four types of Darwin's finches also inhabit the palo santo and croton scrub. Once you've had your fill of birds, snorkelling in the bay can be thrilling for the schools of hammerhead sharks that sometimes congregate at the western arm of the bay. Amongst the crevices and protrusions at the eastern end of the bay inhabited by fur seals, swallow-tailed gulls and red-billed tropicbirds , is a natural dock and a gully, named Prince Philip's Steps after the Duke of Edinburgh's visit in the 1960s. Masked boobies greet you at the top, and another trail takes you through a palo santo forest past more red-footed boobies and frigate birds. On the far side you come out of the vegetation to stand above a broad lava flow overlooking the sea. Clouds of storm petrels swarm in the sky above their nests hidden in the lava fissures. They're the smallest of the seabirds - small enough, in fact, for the superbly camouflaged short-eared owls , to prey on them.
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