I’ve been very lucky on my three previous solar eclipses to have last minute clearings for totality. On this, my fourth total solar eclipse, my luck ran out. Aboard the MS Oosterdam, we were actually wound up in the worst possible position in all of Spain and vicinity; the sun was eclipsed by thick clouds as part of a thunderstorm remnant two minutes before lunar totality. Less than ten minutes after totality, the crescent sun dropped free of the cloud, then made a spectacular sunset into the sea.
In briefings before the eclipse, we were told the main threat to seeing totality came from low clouds, so the ship was positioned in the least likely zone to have low clouds. Alas, it was the high clouds that zapped us.
With the sun only 3.5 degrees above horizon, I knew this would be risky. That’s a lot of cloud-free atmosphere you’d have to look through. We were positioned in the Mediterranean, off the Spanish coast. That afternoon, I could see thunderstorms building up over the Spanish mainland. They rained out, but their high clouds remained.
As zero hour approached, I viewed with growing alarm the sun’s descending trajectory. Then I noticed the ship had stopped. No, no, no! If we went east, we could get the sun above the clouds. If we went west, we could get the sun at totality below the clouds. If we went north or south we could find clear sky.
But who listens to me?
I saw a nice eclipse photo taken from the Spanish island of Mallorca (to our east). You can see the high clouds that zapped us, and the eclipsed sun is well above the high clouds. People on the Spanish mainland, if they had a low horizon, also saw totality. Three other cruise ships nearby, also got clouded out (but a fourth cruise ship to our north was outside the cloud shadow).
It wasn’t a total loss. It was neat to see the cone-shaped umbra race in from the west, and for a minute and a half, it really got dark. We also saw the amazing sight of a crescent sun sinking into the sea.
I also enjoyed the rest of the voyage. I’ve never been to Portugal, Spain, Corsica, or Montenegro (my favorite). And I got to see some new parts of Italy. We also had talks at sea by professional astronomers.
An unexpected highlight, we passed 0.38 miles from the active volcano Stromboli. I was astonished to see people living on the flanks of the volcano! You’d think the Italians would have learned their lesson after Pompeii ….
