Sunset Cruise

Sunset Cruise

The last time we were at Sin Bar, Edison came around with a flyer touting a sunset cruise. He said that it would be leaving next Viernes ( Friday), we were to meet outside a local bank on the Malecon, and he would be able to take 25 people, no dogs.
Edison came around to the house to drop off the tickets; we asked how it was going, and he said that it was oversubscribed.
It is Viernes, we are outside the bank at the time stated and no boat and no Edison. Just then, when everybody was getting concerned, I get a call from Mary saying that the meeting place has been changed. So, we all marched down the Malecon and met up with the crew and the rest of the passengers, where we were presented with a glass of mimosa each.
As I suspected, the boarding was to be a wet landing. This means that we wade into the water, get on a small boat to take us to a larger boat. Well, this is all part of the fun of doing something different! It took the small boat 3 trips to bring all the passengers,crew, and the entertainment on to the boat; there was a brief word from Edison, and then we were on our way.
No sooner were we on our way, then the drinks and food were on offer, the music was playing from large speakers, and we were leaving Salinas behind. Spirits were high and conversations were in full gear.
The sea was not rough, and the waves were close together, so very little pitch and roll. As we moved away from the shore, it became clear that we were not to be treated to a spectacular sunset as the clouds rolled in and the sun fell away without notice. That did not dampen the high spirits on the boat. The one letdown was that the entertainment was not able to play due to the generator not working, and all of the instruments were electric.
The food that was offered was very good: pizza, empanadas, ceviche, postres and no shortage of drinks to wash it down. This was a great opportunity to meet new people and catch up with friends whom you have not seen for a while. The whole thing lasted about 3 1/2 hours at a cost of $35.00 per person. I thought it was a great value. If you think you would like to try this type of event, contact Edison Salinas at 081400900 in Ecuador.
Below are some images I captured while on the boat. Enjoy!

Public information 

Subject: Requirements - Visiting Galapagos Islands

Galapagos Island

From Monday 20 May 2013 the Governing Council of the special regime of Galapagos is implementing the new system of migration control to the Islands. The institution requesting permanent and temporary residents approaching Control of residence of San Cristobal and Santa Cruz offices during office hours to register your personal details and your fingerprint. It is estimated that this process takes between three and four minutes. On the other hand people, who are outside the Islands, must register at the airports of Quito and Guayaquil. The registry consists of read fingerprints of persons and completes your details. The process will allow storing the information of citizens and improving the immigration control of the province.

Record fingerprints and fill out an online form are new mechanisms for the control of the tourists and residents of the Galapagos Islands. This new system began to be used this week (May 20-2013) and users must go through this control if you want to get to that province.

The first step is to login to the portal www.cgg.gob.ec, the Council of Government of Galapagos.

There, on the top tab of residence you must Access the service for tourists and start the pre-registration. A series of basic data, such as names, identification and civil status must be filled. But there are also others that indicate the site where you will stay tourists, the day of entrance and exit, number of flight, airline, among others. After filling these data will be a pre check certification. This process takes between two and three minutes. Certified call, the day of the flight, at the counter of the Government Council, Galapagos, in the airports of Quito and Guayaquil, to register the fingerprints and digital registration. This, according to the authorities, will allow a better control among those who enter the Islands and those who inhabit them. On Tuesday, second day of the process, users had to wait longer than usual to go to the waiting room at Quito's Mariscal Sucre airport. According to officials from the counter, checking fingerprints and record took about 4-5 minutes per passenger. Those who were unaware of the process online had to wait a little more, since on the same site the data record was made. Pre check-up should be performed between 24 and 48 hours before the flight. This will allow shortening the waiting time at the airport. Anyone with any kind of impediment to travel, it may be by having exceeded the number of days of stay as tourists, you will not get the permission. In that case call to the offices of the Council of the Galapagos to fix the situation and obtain a new permit. The tourist operators and airlines inform travelers about this new procedure. The same process of registration of fingerprints is arriving at the island. The system online system was tested for a few weeks. Now on the web registration is faster. If there are problems you can contact phones of the Government Council of the Galapagos. The register of immigration control, which is delivered at the airport, has a value of USD 10; you must cancel the moment of recording fingerprints. With this certificate you can get boarding pass at the airline ticket was purchased. The new system of registration of passengers is aligned with the Civil Registry, to obtain personal data with the fingerprint reading.

Jorge Torres. President of the Government Council Galapagos fingerprint registration is mandatory for all what is the objective of implementing this system of registration by Internet? As Council is incumbent upon us to do immigration control. All who live in Galapagos, temporary, or permanent civil servants, passers-by and visitors (165 000 entered last year) must register at the entrance and exit. So your registration is controlled by this system. What it is? After registering on the Internet page www.cgg.gob.ec, airports fingerprints are taken and when you leave Galapagos will be the same procedure before you submit a credential of residence (for those who live there).

In the next few months we want to merge this information with the identity card so that they only load a document. We have spoken with the Civil Registry to make this merger. All those who live in Galapagos should register their mark? All have to go to the Council of government offices operating in the Islands to register their fingerprints and only for persons over 12 years. Not taken to minors, because their footprints are not developed. In this way, the control is more effective and allows us to check the status of entrants to Galapagos, with precise details. With this new system we have footprints for controls portable readers, we no longer use libertines. What does make the system reliable and not manipulated? The system is managed by the technological equipment and of immigration control, under the structure of the technical secretariat of Government. In a second stage, we will incorporate the faces to know who visit Galapagos. Does advice to visitors? They have to register on the website before going to airports. So they will not lose time and avoid queues. She has trained to travel agencies so that they can help to tourists and avoid that they delay.

Reported by ElComercio.com

This Month

June 14

June 14, 1775 - The first U.S. Military service, the Continental Army consisting of six companies of riflemen, was established by the Second Continental Congress. The next day, George Washington was appointed by a unanimous vote to command the army.

June 14, 1777 - John Adams introduced a resolution before Congress mandating a United States flag, stating, "...that the flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation." This anniversary is celebrated each year in the U.S. as Flag Day.

June 14, 1922 - Warren G. Harding became the first U.S. President to broadcast a message over the radio. The event was the dedication of the Francis Scott Key Memorial in Baltimore.

June 14, 1951 - Univac 1, the world's first commercial electronic computer was unveiled in Philadelphia. It was installed at the Census Bureau and utilized a magnetic tape unit as a buffer memory.

Birthday - Photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White (1906-1971) was born in New York City. In 1936, she became one of four original staff photographers for Life Magazine. She was the first woman to become an accredited war correspondent during World War II. She covered the Italian campaign, the siege of Moscow and the American crossing of the Rhine into Germany. Her photographs of Nazi concentration camps stunned the world. She later photographed Mahatma Gandhi and covered the migration of millions of people after the Indian subcontinent was subdivided. She also served as a war correspondent during the Korean War. Her best known book was a study of rural poverty in the American South, You Have Seen Their Faces (1937).

Birthday - American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was born in Litchfield, Connecticut. She wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, an anti-slavery novel containing vivid descriptions of the sufferings and oppression of African Americans. The book provoked a storm of protest and inflamed people in the North against slavery in the South. The names of two characters from the novel have become part of the English language - the slave, Uncle Tom, and the villainous slave owner, Simon Legree. During the Civil War, as Harriet Beecher Stowe was introduced to President Abraham Lincoln, he reportedly said, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war."

Birthday - American editor and compiler John Bartlett (1820-1905) was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Although he had little formal education, he created Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, one of the most-used reference works of the English language, which today contains 22,000 entries.

Birthday - German psychiatrist and pathologist Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915) was born in Markbreit am Mainz, Germany. In 1907, he published an article first describing 'Alzheimers,' a degenerative disease, usually beginning at age 40-60, affecting nerve cells of the brain and leading to severe memory impairment and progressive loss of mental faculties.

June 15 Return to Top of Page

June 15, 1215 - King John set his seal to Magna Carta, the first charter of British liberties, guaranteeing basic rights that have since become the foundation of modern democracies around the world.

Birthday - Pianist and composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) was born in Bergen, Norway. He incorporated the rhythms and melodies of Norwegian folk music into his songs and instrumentals includingPiano Concerto in A Minor, Peer Gynt Suite, Norwegian Peasant Dance, and Ich liebe Dich.

June 16

June 16, 1963 - Valentina Tereshkova, 26, became the first woman in space as her Soviet spacecraft, Vostok 6, took off from the Tyuratam launch site. She manually controlled the spacecraft completing 48 orbits in 71 hours before landing safely.

Birthday - Film comedian Stan Laurel (1890-1965) was born in Ulverston, England. He teamed up with Oliver Hardy as Laurel & Hardy delighting audiences for more than 30 years.

Birthday - American author and photographer John Griffin (1920-1980) was born in Dallas, Texas. He darkened his white skin using chemicals and ultraviolet light, then kept a journal on his experiences while posing as an African American traveling through the deep South. The journal was published as the book,Black Like Me.

June 17

June 17, 1972 - Following a seemingly routine burglary, five men were arrested at the National Democratic Headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. However, subsequent investigations revealed the burglars were actually agents hired by the Committee for the Re-election of President Richard Nixon. A long chain of events then followed in which the president and top aides became involved in an extensive cover-up of this and other White House sanctioned illegal activities, eventually leading to the resignation of President Nixon on August 9, 1974.

Birthday - Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) was born near St. Petersburg. Among his best known works, the ballets The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913), and the choral work Symphony of Psalms (1930).

June 18

June 18, 1812 - After much debate, the U.S. Senate voted 19 to 13 in favor of a declaration of war against Great Britain, prompted by Britain's violation of America's rights on the high seas and British incitement of Indian warfare on the Western frontier. The next day, President James Madison officially proclaimed the U.S. to be in a state of war. The War of 1812 lasted over two years and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in Belgium on December 24, 1814.

June 18, 1815 - On the fields near Waterloo in central Belgium, 72,000 French troops, led by Napoleon, suffered a crushing military defeat from a combined Allied army of 113,000 British, Dutch, Belgian, and Prussian troops. Thus ended 23 years of warfare between France and the other powers of Europe. Napoleon was then sent into exile on the island of St. Helena off the coast of Africa. On May 5, 1821, the former vain-glorious Emperor died alone on the tiny island, abandoned by everyone.

June 18, 1983 - Dr. Sally Ride, a 32-year-old physicist and pilot, became the first American woman in space, beginning a six-day mission aboard the space shuttle Challenger, launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Birthday - British explorer George Mallory (1886-1924) was born in Mobberley, Cheshire, England. When asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, he simply answered, "Because it is there." He disappeared while climbing through the mists toward its summit on the morning of June 8, 1924. His body, perfectly preserved due to the cold conditions, was discovered by climbers in 1999, just 600 meters (2,030 feet) from the summit.

June 19

June 19, 1953 - Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by electrocution at Sing Sing Prison in New York. They had been found guilty of providing vital information on the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union during 1944-45. They were the first U.S. civilians to be sentenced to death for espionage and were also the only married couple ever executed together in the U.S.

Birthday - Baseball great Lou Gehrig (1903-1941) was born in New York City. He played in 2,130 consecutive games and seven World Series for the New York Yankees and had a lifetime batting average of .340. He contracted the degenerative muscle disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, now called 'Lou Gehrig's disease,' and died on June 2, 1941.

June 20  Return to Top of Page

June 20, 1782 - The U.S. Congress officially adopted the Great Seal of the United States of America.

Birthday - American military hero and actor Audie Murphy (1924-1971) was born in Kingston, Texas. He was the most decorated American soldier of World War II, awarded 37 medals and decorations, including the Medal of Honor for single-handedly turning back a German infantry company by climbing on a burning U.S. tank destroyer and firing its .50-cal. machine gun, killing 50 Germans. He later became an actor in western and war movies and made 45 films including; The Red Badge of Courage (1951),Destry (1954), and To Hell and Back (1955), based on his autobiography. He died May 28, 1971, in a plane crash near Roanoke, Virginia.