Another Questionable Eclipse

Last week, there was a partial eclipse of the sun, "visible" from Kona. It was with some trepidation that I set out, since the "total" eclipse of the sun in 1991 was also "visible" from the Big Island. The 1991 eclipse was on my birthday. That part was nice. We had visitors from Oahu and we looked anxiously at the pre-dawn sky to see where there were clouds and where there weren't. It was cloudy at our house so we took off, heading north to the Kekaha wai 'ole desert. We had with us a pinhole box to look at the projected image of the sun. We stopped out at the 1800 (Puhia a Pele) pahoehoe flow that the airport is built on top of. It was clear. The eclipse started and the sky was clear and it was eerie out on the lava. The light was dimming. About 10 minutes before totality, clouds came in and stayed until the eclipse was over. At the moment of totality we could see the ring, dimly through the thinner parts of the clouds. But totality was awe-inspiring: the ring of the 360 degree horizon was pink all the way around, as though the sun was rising on every side.

So anyway I drove down to OTEC hoping to photograph a sunset with a crescent taken out of it. When the sun descended to about 10 degrees above the horizon, it went behind a bank of high clouds, far, far out. So much for the eclipse/sunset photo. Deja vu.