The Day of the Eclipse. I woke up at 11:44 pm. Eclipse is hours away. There’s some sort of light coming past our curtains from the window and the ship is moving. A little violently. I move in the darkness of the cabin, careful not to wake Cricket and I poke my head past the curtain. The sky is covered in clouds. Everywhere- I see a solid blanket of gray. It’s still hours off, and we’re moving- I’m……………………………..Dr Binzel had been worried at dinner. Honestly, all yesterday…(the 3rd) there had been a fear of cloud coverage and I had been delusionally optimistic that, no. It’ll be fine. In Chile I had had clouds too, but as totality approached, windows opened up and I had a great view. But there was this undercurrent that we were going to be grayed out, and as I poked my head past the curtain to look out the window I think I knew it was not going to work out. I went back to bed, and I practically chanted “Clear skies, sun out” myself to sleep. It occurs to me that I didn’t mention the most important part of the Eclipse briefing- the one I started to doze through. I was woken up because the people I’ve been chatting to have heard me talk about my 360 camera incessantly all trip. So they wanted to make sure I would know where to go since I was considered to have “special gear”. Then we all sang, “Tomorrow” from Annie. Yup. The sun'll come out tomorrow Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow There'll be sun Just thinkin' about tomorrow… That “Tomorrow”. So, I sleep some more, praying for clear skies and waking up….
To none. The ship has calmed down, but there are no gaps in these clouds. There are- I think? 9 ships in the Antarctic region according to our guides/expedition leaders/cruise crew and they’re all in contact with each other. They all have plans for how they want to see the eclipse. One goes *waaaay* North, and the others just…I don’t know, but they go elsewhere. Le Lyrial is close, but I can’t see where she is on the horizon if she actually is. I wake up around 2:45 by the way and even though it looks miserable, I grab all my gear. My sun binoculars, my filters, my 360, my regular camera…
By the time I’m ready to head up, the announcement has been made that
We’re not going to see Totality. Now….
Have you seen Totality? I mean Totality.
Not 99%, not 90%, full 100% Totality? In 2017, Totality crossed 14 states. America could see partial eclipse, but only 10 states saw Totality. And in those fourteen states, Totality spanned 71 miles. (Well, the path is 71 miles wide, so there were a few states where like….they got a corner of their state in Totality’s path.) That’s……very fucking narrow. And I took off work specifically to travel to a place in that 71 mile wide path, I went where I thought I would have clear skies….I put in this effort but I also knew about it months in advance. (Over a year actually but-) So if you were either lucky enough or interested enough to see Totality, you know that is the true magic of a Solar Eclipse. I love the other parts, don’t get me wrong. But Totality is the magic of the Corona, the Diamond Ring, Bailey’s Beads, the final drop in temperature, the encompassing darkness, the 360 sunset! It provides data to scientists impossible to get through other means (seriously, there’s only been like 4 lectures on it this trip) and as Dr. Binzel said, “It is the difference between night and day.” Truly. So the cloud coverage would negate….just about everything. But
Not *everything*. We’d still get the plunge into darkness. Animals would still freak out. Temperature would drop and while it’s a huge bummer-
Sometimes that’s nature. Take what you can. Despite my last shred of optimism that has me bring all my stuff to the Deck 6 lounge at like, 3:30, I leave most of it packed. I prep the 360 camera cause that plunge into darkness IS the *one* thing I’ll be able to capture with the camera. My fancy camera will work, but there’s no sun to photograph, there’s nothing I could capture with my regular camera that wouldn’t just seem like a kinda dark morning. I bring it out anyways. I head to deck 7, and it’s drizzling. Also, we’re no longer out at sea.
We’re back at Shingle Cove. After trying for several hours to find *any* break in the clouds, Dr. Binzel and the Captain called it. There was no place for us to go to see Totality. So they go with the next best thing. Experiencing what we can of the Eclipse in conditions that aren’t hazardous as all get out, and where we can try and enjoy it. So they took us to a safe harbor – so we could stand on deck and watch the Horizon. We do see the birds act crazy- even with the sun covered, there’s still changes happening with the sun covered with 90% moon. The all flock together and fly close over the ship, turning in different directions. And the gray skies become dark gray, and all of a sudden it’s black and a minute later, the darkness lifts and it become light almost immediately! The transition is fast and still impressive. The birds freak out one more time. What was odd for me this time, was the silence. No one made a sound. I don’t know if it was because disappointment, kinda hard to tell the totality from just final darkness, or something else, but it was quiet. No cheering, whooping, nothing. I take about 30 minutes of footage with the 360 camera, and I take like….3 pictures with my normal camera. Totality only lasted one minute where we were. So. I….
This is why I struggled with sitting to write this. I am disappointed. But
I have also had the amazing fortune to
a.) See other Eclipses.
b.) Even attempt to see this one.
And
c.) GO TO ANTARCTICA.
There are 8/9 other ships in this area and it’s estimated about 1500 people *total* across the ships. That’s only 1500 people who maybe could see the eclipse? Like, holy moly. And there’s some consolation that Antarctica seems to enjoy taking the best laid plans and just….telling the intrepid explorer “….Nah.” I do recognize that even by trying to take comfort in the fact that explorers who risked life and limb in the pursuit of science and knowledge and exploration had their dreams sort of dashed as well is a testament to my ego and…hubris? Selfishness? I recognize that I am on a luxury ship with heating and I am doing nothing but existing here and trying to see some part of the Eclipse and the least explored landmass in the world and am a tourist. But the disappointment is real. After the Eclipse ended and we all went to bed at around 5 in the morning, and later as the day progressed, we had information come out that minimized the feeling and I am working towards being grateful that I was even here at all. Selfish gonna selfish, but I’m working on it. So what was the rest of the day? Well.
It was another Sea Day. And it was the worst Sea Day yet. Drake passage was NOTHING. NOTHING. Compared to the waves we experienced today. The winds ended up being about 60 knot winds *on average* with waves 10m tall. Waves ranged from 16 to 32 feet…probably outliers in either direction. The ship rocked in every direction and I would walk uphill and downhill to my room, and have to be careful not to slam into the walls on the left or right. Drinks were cancelled. just
Entirely. Early part of the day, you could still have tea or coffee or whatever. By the afternoon, nothing. You could have water in your water bottle and that’s it. Last night, the 3rd, we had started going in this direction right? To rough seas? Dinner was a restricted menu. Even the “always available” steaks weren’t. Today, (the 4th) I asked for Apple Juice and was told no. I’m not complaining – they’ve probably lost a ton of glassware and no one was being served anything. The only thing not cancelled were lectures. Dr. Christine Siddoway of Colorado College had her lecture on the Antarctic Sheet and I learned a lot on the geology of the continent. It’s also funny seeing the timeframe in which she thinks. In a nice way! If the Ice Caps melt, then they carry nutrients from the ground and will increase the krill population in like 100,000 years! Oh, before that coastal regions will definitely have to move, but once the krill and floral population is up, they’ll take in more C02 and the polar regions will get cold and freeze again! (My time scale is off but that was a point in her lecture.) It is fascinating, but hard for me to follow. My geology base is……….prettyy absent. Then later, a lecture on whaling. And it ended surprisingly optimistically! in 20….in 2080? 2090. In 2090, they estimate the Blue Whale population will be at 40,000 or more members, and I’ll be 98. I might be able to live that long! It was depressing for most of the lecture, but Dr Andy Read (who was the whaling lecturer by the way) ended it with, “The graduates of today and tomorrow will be able to study the recovery of the whale.” But outside of the lectures and food time, (and the eclipse) the day was nothing but us trying to survive these monstrous waves in various locations on the ship (deck 3, deck 6 my room, the restaurant). Dinner had a return to some normalcy (steaks are back on the menu boys!) but not to last. Desserts got moved to Deck 3 because, as we came to find out, a door in the kitchen leading to a deck…uh…broke? And high seas, high waves, high winds….
It was supposed to calm down by 9 pm, but weather’s gonna weather.
Which reminds me as well, so all day, these terrible conditions right?
Captain has to slow the ship down to 5 knots.
So we’re crawling along and getting periodic updates from the captain but he’s optimistic.
And Desserts on Deck 3 is nice and I sit with a few others (Jaying, Andy, Cricket, Jack and two naturalists Helene and Laurent) and the crew naturalists, they tell us that typically
the weather isn’t this terrible.
What happens is, you cross the Drake Passage and you just move away from bad weather.
This whole time though, we’ve been chasing it (the bad weather) to get to our Eclipse spot.
We’re having a very odd cruise because we came for a very specific reason and that pushed us back to the middle of the ocean when normally we’d be hanging around the coast.
But that’s not this trip, so today and the night are going to be more crazy waves as we work our way back to mainland Antarctica. They hope that we’ll make it to DANGER ISLAND tomorrow for an early evening landing.
We’ll see how that goes.
It’s off to be rocked to sleep.
((P.S. The time I actually finished this blog post was 9:25 am on Dec 5th. I ended up falling asleep during the typing, and came back to it later.))
留言