Wednesday - Day 19 - August 12 -- Solar Eclipse Day!

Wednesday was the day of the solar eclipse! 

We started the morning (after breakfast) at "Coffee with Jai" hearing from the singers and dancers in the Nieuw Statendam cast.

Tom Vassos and the Captain were doing one last "prep" talk -- we decided to watch on the big screen by the Lido pool as the talk the previous evening in the World Stage had been packed.

The captain had told us the day before that he thought the best chance for a patch of clear sky would be more north than he had originally planned, but, when he got there on Wednesday, it wasn't looking good, so he started south down the path of totality.

He eventually decided heading south wasn't going to do it, so he turned around and headed back north again, a little east of our previous position.

We headed up to deck 11, above the pool, where we could be outside but also protected from the wind -- our first view was pretty cloudy, but we could see that it was possible that we might be moving into clearer skies. (The picture is with the solar eclipse glasses over the lens of the camera.)

Prepared with our solar glasses

Carl got some good pictures as the moon was "eating away" at the sun.

He had to put the solar glass lens across the phone's lens to protect the phone's lens too.

"A few" other people on deck with us!

The Captain got us into a spot where the sun was visible and we had diminishing sunshine on our faces!

Continuing in the eclipse

Carl's picture during totality

Some of our fellow viewers during totality. As the captain had assured us all along, "Whatever else happens, it *will* get dark!"

Another view of totality showing the sun's corona - amazingly beautiful.

Once the sun started coming back out of eclipse, the clouds moved in and we headed back inside.

After the eclipse, we went to the Lido buffet for dinner, where they had "Solar Eclipse Dessert" (on the left).

Some pictures posted on Facebook by fellow passengers on our ship:

The pink on the left lower side is a prominence, I think.

Diamond ring

We were all fully impressed with the Captain's maneuvering the ship into just the right place -- one of our fellow passengers posted this on Facebook (from Bradley Robert):

Just before the eclipse I was standing on the balcony looking up at the bridge and saw the captain in discussion with other crew members. The captain pointed out the window behind the ship to starboard (like 135 degrees) and the ship makes a giant u-turn. The rest of the story per Jai:

Jai was on the bridge watching the captain tell the crew which way we needed to go to find a hole in the clouds and ordered the new course. As we approached, he made adjustments to make sure we weren’t directly under the hole in the clouds but on the proper course to be at the right angle to see the sun through the hole AND follow the clouds to stay in the pocket.

Really an amazing piece of navigation.

The northeastern point is where we saw the solar eclipse -- we are now heading to our next port via a southeasterly course.

What a day! It was so beautiful, and so neat to experience it with so many others!