Eclipse Report 
Fogged out in Caithness

We drove up to Scotland on Thursday 29th May, stopping overnight in Aviemore. 

On the Friday, passing through Dornoch - who should we see but members of the LAS!! We stopped and had a chat to Geoff Regan. During the evening we had a reconnaissance  of Duncansby Head, Dunnett Head and Gills Bay - and bumped into Biker Joe from the LAS! who was staying at Dunnett Head. 

We had planned to observe from Duncansby Head and had made a mental note of the most suitable car parking spot. The weather was bright and sunny, but cloudy on the horizon on Friday. However, when we got up at 12.15 am, we could see the fog coming down, but thought it may just be a sea fret (or whatever the Scots call it) and hoped it would clear. 

At about 12.45 am we arrived at Duncansby Head car park - to find all the car parking spaces except one were already taken, so our favoured spot had gone. However, after parking up and waiting for about half an hour we realised the fog was getting thicker and was swirling round the car park, visibility only 50 metres or so. So we decided to try and drive out of the fog - first to Gills Bay, then to Dunnett Head, but both were equally foggy.

The 2 am news and weather (viewed on our small portable TV) showed a large patch of fog over the whole of the NE corner of Scotland - this was not just a coastal sea fret! Since the area up to 30 km west of Thurso was unfavourable for eclipse viewing due to the Orkneys being in the way, the only way out of the fog westwards would be to Strathy Point or even Durness. However, since these places were miles away along a winding road in the fog, we didn't think we had time to get there or to be able to get there safely. The next option was to try going south.

From Castletown we went down almost as far as Wick. Since it was patchy fog all the way, we decided we would have to stop somewhere and spotted a beach  on the map (Sinclair Bay) that looked as though it would look out to the NE. We drove down a narrow road to a small car parking space, where there were 2 other cars, this was about 3 am. Later a few more cars arrived and in one of them was Nicky and Peter (a couple we had last bumped into in Melbourne last December, and had met on previous eclipse and aurora trips! - the eclipse chasers world is small indeed!) 

So it was that a group of about 20 people watched the fog on an otherwise deserted beach, hoping it would clear before sunrise, or at least before annularity. 

We set up the video camera, but didn't bother getting out the telescope or SLR cameras. We took a few "ambience" shots with compact and digital cameras. The sun rose behind the fog and we couldn't see it at all; the time for annularity came and went, still with a blanket of fog over it. 

We fancied that the sky ? (fog) looked a little darker in the direction the sun should have been with brightness either side, however, we didn't really notice a dip in the general light around us, only that the light stayed low for some time after "sunrise". The video doesn't really show any light changes in that direction. 

There was no sign of any sun at all, not even a glimmer, and the temperature remained a cool 10.5 deg C throughout the event.

We stuck it out till about 5.45am, then went back to our hotel for breakfast, before embarking on a day trip round Orkney. At least we did something interesting and went somewhere we hadn't visited before as some (very small) compensation for not seeing the eclipse. Roll on 2005, Panama and/or Spain anyone?

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