Sketches made alongside Darwin on the Beagle voyage:

Oh good, someone has done it. I'm pleased, even if they did steal my idea. But better them than me, I suppose; I have no shortage of distractions as is.

Patrick O'Brian on Google Earth

See also: The Patrick O'brian Mapping Project (currently 37% complete).

And also see also: Voyage of the Beagle on Google Earth.

We here at O&P have yet to acknowledge Darwin's birthday. That puts us in good company with Darwin in 1834, who seemed more concerned with baffling winds and Fuegians.

Oh, very well, here's something: the HMS Beagle Project.

In 2009, the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth we will launch a sailing replica of HMS Beagle. An icon of scientific progress, she will circumnavigate the globe in Darwin's wake, crewed by aspiring scientists and researchers. They will carry out original research both at sea and on land, updating Darwin's observations, breaking new scientific ground and relating the adventure of science to enthuse a new generation of young students.

The Project's blog is worth a glance as well, and shall presumably wax ever more interesting.

The aforementioned blog informs us that David Attenborough's next project shall be about Charles Darwin.

Finally and best, (indeed, worthy of near immortalization as the O&P Current Pick) is the Charles Darwin's Beagle Diary blog, daily entries from both Darwin's and Fitzroy's journals, plus illustrations!

Darwin's correspondence, online.

Darwin exchanged letters with nearly 2000 people during his lifetime. These range from well known naturalists, thinkers, and public figures, to men and women who would be unknown today were it not for the letters they exchanged with Darwin.

Darwin's correspondence provides us with an invaluable source of information, not only about his own intellectual development and social network, but about Victorian science and society in general. They provide a remarkably complete picture of the development of his thinking, throwing light on his early formative years and the years of the voyage of the Beagle, on the period which led up to the publication of The Origin of Species and the subsequent heated debates.

Via Tinkerty Tonk.