The Great American Eclipse (from the Oregon coast)

8/21/2017

The big day arrived with heavy fog shrouding the Beaver Creek Welcome Center.

The forecast (For Seal Rock, OR., our closest weather reference point) was partly cloudy till about 11 AM.  Seal Rock is on the beach and we're a little over a mile inland.  That's important when talking about weather on the Oregon coast, so there was hope for us yet.  As 9 AM approached the fog was lifting rapidly and it was turning into a beautifully clear day.

The gate was opened around 6:30 AM and there were already 3 cars waiting.  The parking lot is rather small so that limited the number of people we could accommodate.

Everyone had plenty of room to spread out and find a good viewing position, it was a very festive atmosphere.  At it's peek we counted 103 spectators.

The partial started about 9:15 PDT. with a little bite out of the upper right side.

By 9:50 various viewing contraptions appeared.

By 10 AM we where starting to feel the effects of the diminished light and a noticeable temperature drop.

As totality rapidly approached things started happening very fast.

We could see the light dimming from one minute to the next and there was a fog bank racing across the hills to the west.  This is a typical occurrence at dusk but it was happening very fast.  There were some fears the fog might block our view right at the critical time.

Notice fog on the western horizon.

The fog was moving up our name sake creek and started up the hill across the marsh... but it never moved any further.

At about 10:16 PDT it happened, the glasses came off and we stood in awe of the celestial spectacle.

We had a little over a minute of totality and that was the fastest minute of my life.  It seemed like as soon as it started it was over, the diamond ring effect appeared and the glasses and filters went back on.

After Totality with solar filter.

Everyone was excited, cheering, laughing, talking, already reminiscing about the experience. The remaining partial eclipse became a non-event.  Every so often you'd see someone pull their solar glasses out and take a glance as the moon crawled across the suns face.

By 11:30 we were back to being the sleepy little welcome center a mile off the US 101 on the Oregon coast.