National Eclipse Day

My friend Gary picked me up around 1615 and we drove out to the lighthouse at the tip of the Bonavista Peninsula

The yellow star marks the spot I had chosen yesterday.

The bulk of the crowd were on the far side of the lighthouse, the western side watching for the sky to darken in the west.

Gary took some practice shots with the smart phone camera (“Just tap the white button”). The house will re-appear below.

He then took a series of shots, stepping forwards ten paces at a time. Attaboy Gary!

The rock to my right is a tip of a small island which houses a Puffin colony.

Behind my back lies a submerged rock; waves break over it.

The wind was bitterly cold and coming right off the Atlantic Ocean, hitting the cliffs and trying to push people off the cliffs.

My awkward stance is partly due to the wind-sculpted gardening pants, partly due to my efforts to stay upright and on dry land. I did NOT want to be the first person to be drowned off Cape Bonavista during a total solar eclipse.

Here I am screaming at Gary “Enough already! It’s too cold” but he can’t hear me on account of the wind.

We retreated to the lee of the lighthouse, and when the porch light came on in the light-keepers house we knew The Time Was Near.

Here I am in totality. Not as dark as night. I suspect that light was bouncing around inside the clouds and creating some light..

That’s me, dead-centre of this image. The last human to experience totality in Canada for the next twenty years, and the last of millions of people on the North American Continent to see the totality on this day.

A good shot of me running back to shelter.

In retrospect it was a really stupid idea to wander down a steep path towards an even steeper cliff with steep jagged rocks on the way down and at the surface of the water.

I wouldn’t walk around my backyard in the middle of the night. Why am I stumbling along goat tracks at nighttime?

In a strong gale?

I did manage to grab the camera off Gary and get a shot of the western edge of the shadow as it approached us.

Then it was all over and we opened the car doors by gripping the handles and letting our shivering hands tug until the door was opened.

Gary spotted a jet that seemed to be hovering; probably one of the eclipse-chasing jets, we supposed.

This was the first total solar eclipse I observed today!

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