Our minibuses left the hotel under cloudy skies at 10.00 a.m., but as we drove northwards through the arid, hilly landscape of cactus scrub, the cloud began to break up and our spirits rose. We turned off the road and had the first view of our observing site: an idyllic, sheltered yellow sand beach, lapped by astonishingly clear azure blue water, known as Knip Bay. This is on the western side of the island, a few kilometres south of the northernmost village of Westpunt. Totality would last 3min. 20secs. at this location. The far end of the beach, with a shaded area of trees and canopies, had been cordoned off for the group by the island's Eclipse Committee, who controlled traffic and managed the arrangements in an exemplary manner. The rest of the beach, where there were toilets and a refreshment stall, was full of local people but it was never crowded. Everyone had brilliantly coloured 'eclipse glasses' and the spirit of Carnival (only just officially concluded on the island) was still very much alive.
As we drove into our enclosure at about 11.00 a.m. the rest of the group, flown in from Bonaire, were there before us. It had been raining as they got off the plane in the morning! But now the light cumulus cloud was scudding fast across the sky in the trade winds and all the time it seemed to be getting less. Setting up equipment, many people had problems with the height of the Sun in the sky: most had rehearsed the camera on the tripod at 61 degrees, the height at totality, but many didn't realise that during the partial phases it would be almost ten degrees higher. First contact was seen at 12.40 local time and soon the sky was completely cloudfree from horizon to horizon, remaining that way until after fourth contact.
Before the eclipse the Sun shone glaringly bright on the beach and water, but the dappled shade of trees protected both ourselves and our instruments. Although it is normally said that light levels do not drop significantly during the early partial phases, I felt this time that the visible glare was already much reduced by 50% partiality. By 75% it was noticeably cooler and was comfortable to work and move about out of the shade. Venus could be seen 20 degrees high over the sea at least ten minutes before second contact. A lingering Baily's Bead delayed second contact (the inner corona already visible) for nearly six seconds but at last the corona shone out.
As had been expected, this no longer showed a solar minimum structure. A streamer extended downwards at about 'five o'clock' and there was another at 'eleven o'clock', but other streamers and 'helmets' also surrounded the disk. Binoculars showed fine detail in the shorter sections, but the magnificent stubby 'brushes' of Chile (1994) were not a striking feature. A long prominence at 'one o'clock' was soon covered by the advancing Moon. Standing back from the binocular view, Jupiter below the Sun and Mercury brilliant above it dominated the sky. Even at full totality the eclipse was very bright, mid-twilight rather than night, with no difficulty in moving around or seeing equipment.
All too soon a pink glow at the base of the corona signalled the coming of third contact. The bright chromosphere extended round 140 degrees of the disk, a spectacular shimmering carmine-red, for me one of the most memorable features of this eclipse seen for once in a crystal-clear sky. Some observers reported an especially bright prominence visible just before the diamond ring. Then it was binoculars down and filters on as a glorious diamond ring seared itself into the memory, before the Caribbean sunlight took over the beach again. Many in the group saw shadow bands strongly at both second and third contacts and it is hoped that there may be at least one video record of these.
A special pleasure this time was the observation of fourth contact, not usually possible with all the rush and bustle of packing up and leaving the site. At Knip Bay I could stand quietly with my hand viewer and watch the last vestige of the Moon's disk leave the Sun: a surprisingly well-defined moment even without optical magnification.
Weather permitting, the next time we see this final flourish will be on home ground, on 1999 August 11 in Cornwall, England. My varied eclipse experiences have given me two important points that I would like to emphasise for those involved in public information about the European eclipse. Firstly, make sure it is clear in all the public literature that it is not necessary to be on the centre line in order to see totality. This was brought out for us in Mongolia last year, where it became apparent after the event that people in Ulaan Baatar thought they had to drive 250km to Darhan in order to see anything. In fact the track was wide enough that they could have seen totality from only 50km up the road. This will be particularly important in mainland Europe where the prospect of driving to the centre line may daunt many people who would nevertheless be quite close to the track edge. Secondly, a lesson learned here at Knip Bay. A group of young boys who had been organised to pick up litter around the site, sat down with their adult minder to watch the eclipse near me. Scrupulously they used their Mylar glasses as instructed - but no-one had told them it was safe to look during totality! One of the lads screamed out he couldn't see anything, and when I told him to take the glasses down and look without them, became quite distressed that it would be 'dangerous.' The balance of safety instruction against superstition is notoriously hard to get right, particularly for children, but I hope none of our children in Europe will suffer from such a damaged opportunity.
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