On Monday April 8, Sarah and I drove to our neighbouring province of New Brunswick to see a solar eclipse. And what a sight it was!
We drove about 4 hours to Shediac, New Brunswick to stay in an Airbnb. We drove up on Sunday evening, but I played in the church band that morning, and then we had Stage Prophets rehearsal in the afternoon (our local community theatre group), so we rushed out as soon as that was done. We took the Tesla and charged up at two Superchargers along the way.
On the day of the eclipse, we drove another hour and a half up the eastern coast of the province to Miramichi. But not before hanging out with a giant concrete lobster for a bit. Oh and a giant concrete chicken. Yes, really.
Miramichi was fairly close to the center of totality, and they were having an event at their small airport, so that’s where we went to watch the eclipse. We didn’t take the Tesla (we drove up with family members) because we figured the charging situation would be difficult. Or so we thought. We learned afterward that there are actually superchargers in Miramichi, but apparently they are brand new and not on the map yet!
In any case, we had a good drive up, and the airport was pretty busy when we got there. It’s hard to say how many people were there, but one estimate is that there were over 12,000! We got in, parked, and got ourselves set up.
We arrived just as the partial eclipse was starting. We all had eclipse glasses, and kept stealing glances up at the sun as the moon gradually covered more and more of it. We had seen a partial eclipse before in Nova Scotia back in 2017. But this time, the uncovered part of the sun kept getting smaller and smaller as we watched.
As the moon covered more and more of the sun, we gradually started feeling cooler, putting on warmer layers. Eventually, we started to notice the day seeming more dim, kind of like when the sun is behind some clouds. But even when the sun was just a small sliver through the eclipse glasses, it was still way too bright to look at with our naked eye. The power and brightness of the sun really is amazing.
And then, the final moments before the totality.
Things started getting perceptibly dimmer by the second.
The bright blue sky gave way to a darker blue dusk.
We started to see the colours of a sunset on the horizon.
Wavy shadows started to dance on the pavement of the runway where we were standing.
Through the eclipse glasses, the orange sliver of the sun gradually faded until it became completely black.
The crowd started to cheer.
Some kids started to scream.
Fireworks started going off in the distance.
The totality had started!
I lifted my glasses and saw one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen, up in the sky where the sun should be. Once the sun is totally covered by the moon, it is safe to look at with the naked eye, and since the sun and sky aren’t bright, you can see the sun’s corona (which is basically the sun’s outer atmosphere). No picture that I’ve seen before or after does justice to the experience of seeing it in real life.
Up in the sky there was a circle the size of the sun, but it was completely black. The darkest black you can imagine. A complete absence of light. And all around it, there was a glowing wispy white halo of the sun’s rays emanating out from behind the blackness. Its backdrop was a dusky blue sky, the kind of sky that you see up above when the sun is setting in the distance. No picture I’ve seen has quite captured it. It looked bigger in real life. And seeing it in context against that dark blue sky was just…magical somehow. It was as if my brain couldn’t quite believe what my eyes were telling it that I was seeing.
All around on the horizon, in every direction, were the yellow-orange colours of sunset. Just under that unbelievable eclipsed sun was a bright “star”. It was the planet Venus. The sky was dark enough to make it visible.
I took some photos. I took a selfie with Sarah. I moved the GoPro (which had been filming this whole moment) to a new location. I gazed up at the eclipse, not able to believe or process what I was seeing. More fireworks went off in the distance.
And then, I looked up, and started to see a brightening on the lower right of the black hole. And in less than a second, it was too bright to look at. I lifted my eclipse glasses to see a tiny orange sliver start to appear. The crowd cheered again as the day brightened up. Within seconds, the sky was bright blue again, and the dusk gave way to daylight. The totality was over.
It was the fastest 3 minutes and 8 seconds of my life.
As the day brightened up, I saw a large flock of small birds off in the distance, probably Starlings, which had likely started to congregate for the night. A couple minutes later, a flock of crows flew overhead from the nearby woods, evidently also having gathered to their nighttime roost. Almost immediately, people started getting into their cars to leave the airport. A private jet or two that had come to the airport took off with their passengers. The show was over.
We stuck around, though. We still had another hour of partial eclipse, and while we packed up our gear and headed back to the car, we kept glancing up (through the glasses) at the receding moon as it gradually returned the sun’s brightness to us. The day kept getting brighter. It started to warm up again. And over time, the sun was back to being a full circle in the sky. The eclipse was officially over.
We drove back to Shediac that evening, and took the Tesla back home the next day. It’s kinda crazy the amount of buildup and work that went into being there for a 3 minute event. But for such a small amount of time, it sure made a big impact on me. It was awe-inspiring, humbling, and magical. I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to witness such an amazing and dramatic celestial event.
