On Top of the World:
The 2008 North Pole And Solar Eclipse Voyage
on the Nuclear Icebreaker I/B “Yamal”
The 2008 North Pole And Solar Eclipse Voyage
on the Nuclear Icebreaker I/B “Yamal”
Total Solar Eclipse and Walruses
Eclipse day dawned - misty and foggy. We were close to the Centre Line of Totality not far from Victoria Island so that Viktor could have a chance to make a final landing if possible but we had headed back up into the ice field. Eclipse glasses were handed round to the passengers and Expedition members for safe viewing of the partial stages. The weather had been predicted to clear from the north but the ice helped the formation of morning fog which hindered our best efforts at seeing the eclipse. Paul kept everyone’s spirits up as the time approached and the Captain moved the ship towards potential clearings in the sky so we caught glimpses of the progress of eclipse. The over-riding theme of Pauls eclipse talk had been that even if cloudy the ‘sky would go dark’ and of course it did just that but despite a little jig by Paul to clear the skies we didn’t see actual totality except for the darkness that swept over us. Prior to the trip Paul had advised an 80% chance of poor weather for the Arctic based in information from NASA’s ‘Mr Eclipse’ Fred Espenak so unfortunately the weather performed as expected on the day. As if to tease us there were moments s when it looked like the sky would improve as we could see distant sunshine reflecting on the ice and later that day as the eclipse drew to an end the skies did begin to improve, too little, too late. That afternoon we had a bonus of coming across several Walruses resting and playing in the watery gaps in the ice field which at least partially made up for the poor eclipse.