THE ADVENTURE
My name is Chap Percival. On Saturday, February 21, 1998 three companions (my wife, Bonnie, and friends, Mel and Jane) and I flew from St. Petersburg, Florida to San Juan, Puerto Rico to start a seven-day adventure that for me was a first. In San Juan we boarded the liner, Dawn Princess, enroute to the southern Caribbean and ultimately to the island of Aruba. There we rendezvoused with the shadow of the moon and witnessed the grand spectacle of a Total Solar Eclipse. There will be other solar eclipses, to be sure, but the next one visible in the United States is not until 2017.
This was a wonderful trip in every sense of the word. No one got seasick, the weather cooperated, the food was most comestible, and, foremost for me, the eclipse was AWESOME! I got great shots of the diamond ring, some solar prominences and the middle corona. Here are some of the pictures from the trip.
I am a full-time public school teacher. I teach at Pine View School in Osprey, Florida (Sarasota County), a school for intellectually gifted students grades 2-12. I currently teach Computer Science and Programming and Astronomy on the high school level. I am in my eighteenth year at Pine View and during those years have taught computer skills in every grade level..
I saw my first eclipse when I was 6-1/2 years old. I lived in Pennsylvania. My father was into photography and had some developed over-exposed black & white negatives. The solar eclipse of 1954 was total in the midwest but only partial in Pennsylvania. I remember holding the negatives up and seeing the "crescent" sun. What a sight! Shortly thereafter we moved to New York City. I recall seeing total and partial Lunar Eclipses while there. We moved to Virginia in 1962 and I remember setting up projection devices for friends to view the 1963 solar eclipse, which was again partial. After graduating from college, I taught at Payne High School in Ohio. In March of 1970, my wife and I drove 2 students to Virginia to view the total Solar Eclipse there.
What a day! The weather was perfect. Visibility was great and we saw a fantastic eclipse! Even now, 27 years later, I can still recall the conditions surrounding that day. Unforgetable! Well, in July1972 I drove with a few students up to Cap Chat, Quebec on the St. Lawrence River for another total solar eclipse. It was a great trip. The skies were clear the day before the eclipse and even the morning of the eclipse. Thin clouds started to move in as the partial eclipse started. We could see the sun up until 2 minutes before totality and then the clouds just became too thick. So near and yet so far. The Astronomers nemesis had won again.
In the intervening 25 years circumstances have conspired against me time and time again in my attempt to see another diamond ring in the sky. This time we combined my wife's desire to go on a cruise with mine to see another eclipse. It was a winning combination since even with this year of El Nino, the weather cooperated and the trip was great!