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It was a poor man's eclipse expedition, barely 2 days in duration. Our goal: to observe "The Big One" — 6 minutes 53 seconds of totality. 185 eclipse chasers flew in a chartered plane from Toronto to Peurto Vallarta. After spending the afternoon there and having a marvellous Mexican dinner, we all went to bed early.
Everyone ate breakfast at the hotel at 3:30 am and our plane was in the air by 6:00 am. We flew over to Los Cabos at the very bottom of the Baja peninsula.
Several buses were then loaded with people and telescopes and we were off to the centre line. The observing
site was a soccer field near La Paz. Soldiers were present there to insure our safety.
The skies were clear until about 10 minutes before second contact. By that time, the air temperature had dropped to the dewpoint and clouds started to form and thicken.
Despite the clouds, we managed to see some inner corona, prominences, and finally, the "diamond ring" at third contact; the sight of the black sky as the moon's shadow rushed towards us in the instants before second contact was unforgettable. So the eclipse wasn't a total washout.
Here's my setup at the site: a C8 and a camera tripod.
Señor Clapp in action...
Randy Hendriks was a study in concentration...
John Hicks tries to think his way out of a sticky situation...
Randy Hendriks, John Hicks, me, Doug Clapp.
Here I am on the Tropic of Cancer.