Martin and Gemma's Eclipse Trip, France 1999

This is my account of our trip to France to see and experience the total eclipse of the sun....August 11th 1999.

The park seemed to be full of Brits... hardly a french voice was to be heard. I was mindful that we had a lot of gear to set up and very little time to do it, so Gemma and I ignored the nice prominent Travelsphere signs and went directly to the nearest open area and started to set up.

We had a problem straight away. We had no sun to aim at and no sun to focus on. I had not anticipated this. If we were to get any decent shots, we would need to point the cameras at the sun and focus on it. By 12:20 we had done neither! The groups of people around and behind us started to look a little disappointed as the light level started to drop. I looked at my watch...12:25, it should go total anytime now, but no sign of the sun. The light level suddenly dropped and I turned around to take pictures of the small groups near to me... to capture the feeling of disappointment...

Suddenly a voice shouted out.. "I can see it... its there!"