Years and years ago, I decided I wanted to see a solar eclipse so I looked it up and saw one would be coming my way in just a few years. Luckily the path of totality was just a few hours away from where I live. Exciting!!!
Well. I forgot all about until about a month ago when I got an email at work about an eclipse viewing party on the roof of the building I work in. At first I was excited, but then disappointed because I had forgotten about it and didn't make plans to travel to the totality path. But then I realized it would happen during our annual beach trip so we thought about driving a few hours south to the edge of the totality line.. Unfortunately a rainstorm ruined those plans so we decided to stay put, and head to Sand Dollar Island and hope for the best.
It was a dark Monday, rain clouds were surrounding the area and as we boarded the ferry, it began to rain. The ferry driver commented that he was sending us out to a sand bar in the middle of the sea, in a rainstorm during an eclipse. Which made me pretty darn excited.
When we got to the island, we had left the clouds behind on the mainland and the sun finally appeared! I wandered around and found a few sand dollars, then the moon began to move in front of the sun..
Being unprepared for this event that I had been so excited to witness, I didn't think to buy any special filters for my camera for photographing the eclipse.
These two pictures were taken when the sun was 97% covered by the moon. With my NASA approved Eclipse glasses on, only a tiny slice of the sun was visible. But the sun was so bright that even with my camera's fastest shutter speed, and the highest aperture, it still was too bright to capture!
This was a picture I took with my phone through my glasses.
The strangest thing to me was that even though the sun was mostly covered, it was barely even dark out. But the lighting was quite strange. It looked like I was wearing sunglasses when I wasn't.
I was a very cool experience to be at one of my favorite places during a solar eclipse. It worked out for the better that I forgot about the eclipse, because if we had planned on traveling the path of totality, we wouldn't have been able to see it because of the rain.
One day I want to see a total solar eclipse. The next one is just a few years away in South America. Sounds like a good excuse for an exciting vacation!
