Bob King, AKA Astro Bob, recounted his journey to see the total solar eclipse on The Lift. He took a cruise along the coast of Mexico on the Pacific, near Guatemala.

“We were supposed to be at Mazatlan near Mexico, just outside on the centerline. But they had high clouds, and the captain of the ship had never seen a solar eclipse. He didn’t want to disappoint everyone on board, so he redirected the ship in the early morning hours and gave us perfectly clear skies.”

Cruising on the Southern Hemisphere provided a different perspective of the stars. “In Duluth, of course, the horizon blocks of the view of those southern stars. So in order to see them you had to travel around the curvature of the Earth,” Bob explained. “We got to see new constellations like Vela, Carina, and the Southern Cross. The southern milky way came up too.”

By day, there were lectures from astronauts aboard the cruise.

Bob describes the total solar eclipse as a powerful and emotional experience “It makes you feel in the moment like, love, practically.”

“We see these strong emotional experiences that are communal… The people experience is just as great as seeing the weirdness, the strangeness of the sun in the sky.”

Photos courtesy of AstroBob.