ECLIPSE REPORT

London -- Sat 14 August 1999

Well ... no. Didn’t exactly see it. But what we *did* see was still pretty amazing.

[For the enlightenment of those to whom I have not blathered about this, I came to the U.K. at the end of July to attend the Sidmouth Folk Festival in the SW of England, and stayed on to view the eclipse which was to be visible in Cornwall & across Europe.]

Although the original plan was simply to stay on in the conveniently-located Sidmouth area – the festival was extended & the campground was within a few miles of the totality band, clinching my decision to come in the first place – poor weather prospects, a leaky tent & an attractive invitation from some people to spend the weekend near Canterbury led me back to southeast England.

So on Tuesday (the day before the eclipse), NASA maps in hand, I made my way to Dover, took the ferry across to Calais, rented a car, & headed off to Northern France. A couple of hitchhikers at the Autoroute onramp were holding up a sign for "Reims" (the largest city in the part of the totality band to which I was heading); figuring (correctly) that they were really just heading for the eclipse, I picked them up.

Laon plateau.

It proved to be a good move, as Tim & Lisa (Brits) were later to chip in for the tolls & buy me beer. We settled on the city of Laon, 75 miles northeast of Paris, as our destination - in the area where the latest weather forecasts gave the best (although still mediocre) odds, and right on the centerline of the eclipse. The roads were surprisingly empty on the way down, considering the horror stories we had heard about congestion on the roads leading into Cornwall.

It was just starting to get dark (skies were broken with occasional showers) as we left the highway & made our way through quiet farmland towards Laon. It wasn’t hard to spot; Laon sits on a plateau 250 feet above the surrounding plains, its silhouette defined by a huge twin-tower medieval cathedral! Entering the town (raining now), we finally began to see signs & crowds following them, so we got in line. Turns out there was a festival in town; we followed these signs to camping.

Signs of civic pride were everywhere (can you find the photographer?)

The official campground was full, but we managed to make our way to the overflow camp - at the hippodrome, Laon’s disused horse track. We and a few hundred other devotees were able to pitch our tents in the center of the track, accompanied by the singing of a band of drunken Scots in one end of the covered grandstand, and a band of drunken some-other-nationalities in the other, trying to top one another. We drove up into the town (beautiful with its cobbled streets, can’t wait to see it in the daylight) and had beer & crepes until the wee hours, then returned to the hippodrome, shared a bottle of wine, then crashed [SFX: drunken singing continues].

11 August 7:00 a.m. Poked my head out of my tent & found cause for optimism; the rain had stopped, and although it was still more cloudy than not, there was a big clear hole right above us. The next few hours (eclipse due to begin around 10:00, totality at 11:10 local time) were spent in my tent calculating exposure times, doublechecking my camera, and watching the sun play hide-n-seek.

Tim & Lisa, their tent & the hippodrome. About 9:00 a.m.

Drove off to the local supermarket for supplies; by the time I got back Tim & Lisa were up, and we had breakfast & coffee. One hour to go.

The sky was still less than 50/50 as first contact approached, but we were confident that we were going to see *something*. Not for the first time, Tim remarked how perfectly rational people sometimes go mad when confronted with a total eclipse. Intelligent, normal, sane people. I assumed he was referring to himself. Meanwhile Lisa was jumping up & down like a little kid.

We were roaming about with our welders’ glass (there were a couple of hundred people also at the track, most had cheap cardboard glasses with mylar lenses) and generally acting excited & giggling when the shout was heard. Filters to eyes, and there it was - that first little bite. I snapped a few pix - but the clouds were rolling in again. In another 15 minutes it was all but overcast, with occasional breaks. The sky to the east, the direction from which the weather was coming, did not look promising. Yipes. I spent the next ½ hour checking my watch & snapping the occasional crescent sun when it showed itself, while Tim & Lisa went off in search of beer. How British.

About ½ hour into the eclipse.

20 minutes to totality, and the sky to the east was now totally bleak. The only (relatively) light and/or broken part of the sky was in the west, so I jumped in the car & raced off hoping to improve the view if even a little. Found Tim & Lisa walking back with their beer, so I picked them up & we spent the next 15 minutes shooting through farmland, sometimes past hundreds of parked cars & their passengers with their telescopes & cameras gazing up at gray nothing, until we found ourselves at the edge of a hay field with relatively few other people around. At least we had better horizons here. We got out. Five minutes to go. Well, what were we going to see, if anything? It was now about as dark as a rainy Seattle day, but nothing dramatic. I’d heard of being able to see the moon’s shadow racing over the clouds, so I fixed my eyes to the west & hoped for something. With about 1 minute to go, Lisa shouted "Look!" and we could just see the barest sliver of the 99% + eclipsed sun through a tiny break. I snapped it and it was gone. Well, it was a *little* darker. We sat down by the side of the road.

Wait, did it just get darker? I looked around, and suddenly darkness rushed in at us from all sides at a rate you can’t imagine. My first impression was that my eyes were failing - and it seemed to get darker in steps, which I suspect is because my irises couldn’t keep up. The overcast softened the effect; there was no shadow, everything just dimmed uniformly. Like someone throwing a switch, we were plummeted into near-night conditions in ... 5 seconds? 10? 20? Impossible to say. We could now barely see, like the last twilight before total night. "Omigod" is all I think anyone said. We sat in the dark, spellbound. A rooster crowed. With no spectacle in the sky to stare at, I looked around. Everything was dark in every direction except at the horizons, which were a little lighter. We giggled nervously.

Immediately after the totality, a swarm of birds came out of nowhere.

Looking to the west again, Lisa said, "Looks like sunrise." Just as suddenly, the lights came back on. By the time we noticed it, it was over. Just overcast. A farmer drove past us in a tractor hauling potatoes. Business as usual. We looked at each other. "Did that really happen?" Moments later the fields, quiet 10 minutes before, began swarming with birds. By the hundreds martins came out of nowhere, singing & flying every whichway - presumably going about their morning chores. Talk about surreal.

After a couple of minutes Tim, who up until now had not moved or said anything, said, "I - I guess I can stand up now." He held out his hand. It was shaking. Lisa, on the other hand, was jumping up & down. "I am HOOKED!!"

We

Cafe in town; the last of the partial phase, about an hour after totality.

stood there another 10 minutes or so, saying little, then got ourselves together & drove back into Laon in search of some lunch (and discussed attending the next eclipse in Africa in 2001 or 2002). And yes, within an hour the sun came back out! We found ourselves in the commercial/financial part of town (not the old city). The partial phase of the eclipse was still playing out; I have a picture of people sitting outside a cafe, staring up in their mylar glasses. Later, I dropped them off at the edge of town (I was staying the night, but they were eager to hitch back to Calais). Thursday I drove back to Calais, and now I’m back in London (where the people I’ve talked to were pretty much unimpressed by the whole event).

SO ... Was it a disappointment? Well, sure, after all the visions I had of flaming coronas, awesome spectacle of nature, etc. etc. Was it worth it? Definitely!! Even though we missed part of the experience, it was moving in a way that’s hard to describe. I wonder now: When the lights go out, is that a little like what dying feels like? ("It’s getting dark, Pa ... <cough> ...") One thing is sure: Something inside all of us was terrified at that moment. Someone I met later at the campground reported that he heard people - grown men - crying. Then there was having shared something with the people you were with. When I left Tim & Lisa by the side of the road I had spent less than 24 hours with them, yet she said to me, "I’m never going to forget you."

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Well, I’ll be back in Seattle on Monday. Thanks to those who have been looking after Cat, and Mark M. for looking after the Loaches (uhm, we’re still undefeated, right?)

(Ash, how’d you do in Cornwall?)

- R