Antarctica Tour

John and Leticia's Antarctic Eclipse Adventure

November 23, 2003 22:39 UT

John's picture of the Diamond Ring during the eclipse.

The eclipse ... 2 minutes and 30 seconds of an awesome event. Since 1998, we planned our vacations to view Total Solar Eclipses. I call it world travel on a deadline. Both John and I are "deadline" kind of people. If we don't have a specific date and time to target, something always "comes up". By choosing to pursue eclipses, an event only God can change, we are seeing these glorious events and this wonderful world.

This year's event was a special challenge as the totality zone only made landfall on the continent of Antarctica. Of all the tours going, accommodations by ship, plane/landfall, and flights, we chose to fly the "Eclipse Express" on Qantas out of Melbourne, Australia.

Every year, Croydon Travel and Qantas Airlines take a chartered 747 tourist run over Antarctica. This trip is very popular and is usually done twice a year in December and January. But four years ago, eclipse umbraphiles began an email campaign to do an "eclipse express" for the Nov. 23rd, 2003 event. For those interested in the Antarctica flight (which we highly recommend), www.antarcticaflights.com.au/. Croydon usually sponsors a "New Year's Eve" flight.. I think its would be a great way to start off a new year.

Our Antarctic adventure, started off at the Qantas Domestic Terminal for Qantas Flight #2901/2911. Our flight left at 2:00am Melbourne Time. Yes, 2:00am. After the 14 hour flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne two days prior and finally adjusting to Melbourne time, we're awake at 2:00am to travel to the eclipse.. scheduled for 9:39am Melbourne time. Argghh.. talk about jet leg. We flew out on this Boeing 747-400.

The terminal filled quickly with two groups of people, the Eclipse chasers and the Antarctica Tourists. Of the 410 passengers, 110 paid the "eclipse" premium to sit on the left side of the plane. So the Antarctica Tourists outnumbered the Eclipse chasers 3 to 1, but not in enthusiasm. Three camera crews roamed the terminal interviewing the Eclipse enthusiasts. One gentleman had seen 36 eclipses in his lifetime. We personally talked with a gentleman who'd view 17 Total eclipses. Yes, this trip separated the hobbyists from the serious enthusiasts. With this tour, John and I graduated to a whole new level.

Our flight trip was planned by Glenn Schneider, Steward Observatory University of Arizona. He did the flight planning for both the Lan Chile Flight and our Qantas Flight. His voice is the one you hear in the eclipse video linked below.

After a 2-3 hour nap and a lovely supper, we reached the Australian Territory of the Antarctic Coast. Yes, it looks cold. Some quick facts about Antarctica. It is the coldest, driest and highest (on average) continent on earth. The South Magnetic Pole is actually several thousand miles from the South Geographic pole. So when John brags we flew over the South Pole.. it was the Magnetic Pole. The normal Antarctic tour hugs the coastline and flies over mountain ranges. We first visited the coastline, and attempted to view the mountain ranges, but "whiteout" blizzard conditions and heavy cloud cover prevented us from seeing anything, so we flew along the coast to the Iceberg fields.

Then I looked at the sun through the special "solar eclipse" glasses.. the moon had taken a bite out of the sun, and I yelled out "first contact!" Pandemonium broke out in the plane as the other 109 eclipse enthusiasts raced for their solar filter glasses and cameras. The event had begun - we looked at the partial eclipse in awe through our special glasses. The crew on our plane had never seen a solar eclipse, so John and I shared our "welder's glass" frames with the crew. Our pilot began setting up for our eclipse run. The plane banked sharply and turned putting the partial eclipse on the Antarctic "tourist" side of the plane, they got a great view of the partial. From the plane we saw shadow bands over the clouds and ice.

Climbing to 35,000 feet and flying further inland, the pilot put us into our eclipse run, with the sun on the "eclipse enthusiast" side of the plane. Usually a solar eclipse is a 2-3 hour event of four stages, 1st contact- the moon begins to cover the edge of the sun, 2nd contact-full eclipse begins, 3rd contact-full eclipse ends, 4th contact-when the moon no longer covers the edge of the sun. Because we literally chased this eclipse on the plane, the event to us occurred over a period of about 45 minutes.

Finally we were in position and began our eclipse run. 2nd contact, the moon eclipsed the sun. This is my 6th eclipse and John's 5th eclipse, each one is beautiful, awesome and unique. Because we were 35,000 feet up the sky was a magnificent dark back drop, a deep rich blue. To me, it appeared to be a painting hung in the sky, the prominences glowing and the ring about the moon blazoned.

This is our best picture, below you can see total eclipse along with the moon's shadow in the sky and on the ground.

After the eclipse the party began.. our fellow chasers paraded this special flag around the plane.

John and I invested in a new Sony Digital Video camera for this event, to no avail. Due to operator error (Leticia), the video did not come out. John's pictures with the still digital camera, a simple point and shoot, came out great! Those are his pictures above. But to the rescue is Simon Munro. Simon, a steward on our flight, captured this great video from the airplane's bathroom window. Click on the eclipse picture on the left to see the his video. Warning - with a Real Time player the file is 45MB.

After the eclipse we continued with our Antarctica Tour click here for more.

The Australian Broadcasting Company) did a report on the eclipse. Here is page of the reports.

http://www.abc.net.au/brisbane/stories/s996269.htm

For comments and questions on this page please email me.

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