Academy Bay, bay at the south end of Santa Cruz (Indefatigable) Island (one of the Galapagos Islands), in the eastern Pacific Ocean about 600 miles (965 km) west of mainland Ecuador. Named in 1905 by the California Academy of Sciences Expedition, it is the site of the Charles Darwin Research Station, which was established in 1959 to study and preserve the Galapagos Islands’ flora and fauna. The bay also serves as a harbour for small craft. It was from Academy Bay that the stranded Norwegian crew of the abandoned ship Alexandra was rescued in 1906.