Eclipse Day is here!! The day started by meeting "the boys from Texas". Background, at the "Kung Fu Show" in Beijing, John noticed a young man in the row just in front of us with University of TX T-shirt. John chatted with them and found out they were on a one month tour of Asia, with hope/target to see the eclipse. I gave them my email and China cell phone number and told them to contact me in Hami. James, one of the boys, told me he'd hoped to catch up with a group and just follow them into the viewing site. I call them boys, really young men in their 20's.
This morning at 8am, James, Dereck and Bo caught up with us. So, after talking with them I realized these guys didn't have a plan. After giving them eclipse glasses, eclipse track maps, a time table of the eclipse, and requesting our Chinese guide help them negotiate the services of a taxi driver for the day, they attempted to follow us to the Yiwu eclipse site. Sadly, security was tight and they did not get past the first check point (you needed a permit issued months in advance). With the map I gave them they were able to see the eclipse from another site. As you can see, our site was remote. Our site near Yiwu, China, bordered Mongolia and Russia.
We took a caravan of buses to the Eclipse site near Yiwu China.
We stopped first in Yiwu, an oasis of life in the desert. An idyllic village of Yurts, cows, goats, horses, fruits, gardens, trees and green.
Then we got to the eclipse site, at the edge of the Gobi Desert. BTW, Gobi means stony, it’s a stony desert. Before 1st contact the temperature was in the 90’s pushing 100. A bright and hot desert summer day.
Then, first contact, a nibble on the edge of the sun. Oh no!!! Clouds!!
As you can see in the following series of pictures, the light begins to wan, getting darker and darker each passing quarter hour.
A comment on the chairs. Chasing eclipses involves going to remote places, usually deserts to increase the chances of seeing one. Facilities in the desert are limited. Everything is brought onto the site, usually by the tour arrangers. One thing always limited or missing
is Chairs!! The first true desert eclipse I saw in Australia, I asked will there be chairs on site, the answer was no!!
I ran out and bought two “camp” chairs like the one shown here. Now every desert eclipse, I purchase two chairs at a local (relatively nearby, in this case Urumqi) store and carry them to the site. I refer to them as our viewing equipment.
As totality approached we began to worry the clouds kept hanging around.
And around. Move clouds, move!!!
A great day, worth the 6 hours on the bus to the site and another 6 hours back to the hotel in Hami.
I hope that soon all of my friends will travel to an eclipse. At least once in a lifetime. Maybe even with me. Maybe next year, July 22, 2009 in the Pacific Ocean? If not, in 2017 on August 21st, you’ll get a chance to catch one here in the United States, and if you hang out here in Dallas until 2024, you’ll see one over head on April 8th.
Enjoy,
Leticia
Latitude: 43:27:10 N = 43.453 deg N = 43 deg 27.162' N
Longitude: 94:50:49 E = 94.847 deg E = 94 deg 50.812' E
8/2/2008
I met Khati on the 2005 Galapagos Eclipse Tour and traveled with her on the add-on tour to Machu Piccu.
