There was a total solar eclipse on 11 Aug 99, which would be visible from Cornwall and the Scilly Isles. As the weather forecast predicted heavy clouds on the day, I couldn't face joining the traffic jams heading West. Dorset was predicted to have 99.5% coverage of the sun, but it would be full coverage a few miles South of the Dorset coastline. My cunning plan was to head to the coastal footpath above Dancing Ledge, where I would have a good view over the Purbeck coastline all the way to Portland. A few mates from Southampton joined me for the morning. I figured I would see the impacts of the solar eclipse over the sea.
Unfortunately, it was still cloudy in Purbeck back in 99. While we couldn't see the moon covering the sun, we did see it suddenly become very dark over Portland, as if there was about to be a tremendous storm. The darkness race East until it reached and passed us. There was also a noticeable drop in temperature, although that picked up again as the skies brightened. It had been a fun morning and given the traffic jams in Cornwall, it was a wise move to stay local. The only downside was I didn't have a decent camera in those days to capture the event. I can remember the forecasters saying there wouldn't be another full solar eclipse in the UK until 2090. There would have to be an amazing increase in life expectancy for me to see that one locally.
There are occasional partial solar eclipses in the UK and the best for a generation happened on the evening of 13 July 26. I finished my regular volunteering day on Brownsea and without a lot of time to travel, I figured my best option was to head to the St Aldhelms patch. Unfortunately, quite a few others decided on the same plan and the car park was packed. More people parking inconsiderately on the approach road and on the private track leading to the Chapel, including one idiot car driver, who would have made it impossible for the farmer or quarry workers to get a wider vehicle past. As I've got permission to drive to the Chapel, I decided that was my best Plan B. Only a few vehicles had driven down the rough track so parking wasn't too bad when I reached the Chapel. There were quite a lot of people on the main coastal path, so I headed for the quiet of my main seawatching viewpoint.
Maybe I should have taken the big camera to take some close ups of the sun. However, I was worried about leaving it pointing at the sun for the duration of the eclipse, so all my photos were taken on the IPhone.
