The fact that the island was remote and uninhabited, the Captain was
             incompetent, the colonists were flexible, and Mary Hepburn had a genius
             plan of artificial insemination all kept the population of humans on Santa
             The Galapagos islands, being located west of the Peruvian coast,
             "separated from the mainland by one thousand kilometers of very deep water,
             very cold water fresh from the Antarctic" (Vonnegut 3). The islands are
             described as a "sailor's nightmare where the bits of land were mockeries,
             without safe anchorage or shade or sweet water or dangling fruit, or human
             being of any kind" (17). Santa Rosalia was the "northernmost of the
             islands, so all alone, so far from the rest" (43). However remote, the
             islands were mysteriously occupied with life forms such as geckos, rice
             rats, lava lizards, spiders, ants, grasshoppers, and tortoises. What
             Darwin referred to as magic for these animals to have lived on these
             islands, also proved to be magic for those aboard Bahia de Darwin as well.
             Another contributing factor to the colonists' survival was the
             inadequate Adolph von Kleist. In fact, we are told that the "combination
             of the Captain's incompetence . . . has turned out to be of incalculable
             value to present-day humankind" (139-40). If the ship had ever reached
             Balta, which the Captain desperately wanted to do, those aboard "would have
             found it devastated and depopulated by yet another package of dagonite"
             (233). His incompetence kept the ship at sea for days--he had no map and
             continued to rely on his "big brain," which was misleading him. He kept
             steering the ship to put the sun where it was supposed to be, according to
             his big brain. We are later told that the ship was sailing far too north.
             (243). About a week later, they are still lost, with the Captain still
             "turning the ship this way and then that way" (247). In addition, as Leon
             tells us that if the Captain...