Lynn and I spent September 21-25 on the islands of Aruba and Curacao scouting observing sites for the upcoming February 26, 1998 total solar eclipse. A 45 minute flight from Aruba took us into Caracas, Venezuela's airport around 6:40pm on February 25 where we were met by Gonzalo Mora, a driver whose services had been arranged by our hosts from the Unversidad de los Andes in Merida. Then a 25 minute journey from the airport took us to the Hotel Quince Letras, only to learn that our hotel rooms did not exist. Not deterred, Gonzalo drove a few kilometers down the road and located the Hotel Santiago; here was a small hotel with rooms for US$23. As we began the check-in process an altercation ensued between a drunk American tourist and a Venezuelan. Only 20 feet away we could hear every epithet and this continued on for many minutes. We finally located our room and waited until Richard and Becky arrived several hours later. In the meanwhile we had two cellular phone calls from Dr. Patricia Rosenzweig who was coordinating our activities. She confirmed the details of the next days' meeting.

At 6:00am we left the hotel for the domestic airport and the 37 minute flight to the city of Barquisimeto. Here we met our hosts, Dr. Rosenzweig, Dr. Orlando Naranjo, and six physics students intent on observing the eclipse with very modest equipment: 1 pair of binoculars, a 60mm refractor and a camera with 400mm lens. We settled briefly into our Hotel Obelisco in Barquisimeto. Weather predictions showed that thunderstorms were expected in the city proper. So we planned a primary and backup route to the occultation zone near the coastal town of Tucacas, 283 km away. In the weeks prior to this, it took a lot of work to convince the Venezuelans that mobility would be the key to any possible success due to the weather volatility in the region. They were, however, very determined to set up a fixed site based on the initial belief that Barquisimeto, also in the grazing occultation path, would have good weather. Months earlier, Marge Nunez had visited Tucacas and brought me back some useful information on the area including maps and videos.

Shortly after 1pm, the University bus and one car took all of us including two armed national guardsmen on the 2.5 hour drive to Tucacas. The policemen were necessary due to the crime situation in Venezuela. There was a brief stop along the way; to consume Kentucky Fried Chicken. Richard spent much of the time explaining our program to the students, the nature of occultations and what we hoped to accomplish. He also showed them copies of the Occultation Newsletter and explained the observing processes..

As we approached Tucacas we drove through the occultation zone noting that there was only one road along the beach where sites could be set up. Lots of traffic and people walking about presented a challenge. Before we could officially survey the sites with GPS, we had to drive to the National Guard base and pick up two more guards armed with automatic weapons. This has almost become a standard operation for RING OF FIRE EXPEDITIONS to difficult observing locations. Now our vehicles contained 17 people. We ventured back down the beach road to locate two stations where my Celestron 5 and Richard's Meade 2045 D would be based. Two 15-minute data takes were conducted just prior to 6pm to collect GPS positional information. At that point everyone headed into town to have a nice seafood dinner at the Venemar restaurant where we discussed the plans for the occultation, now less than five hours away. By 8:15pm we walked to the National Guard base where I set up my Takahashi mount and loaded it in fully assembled condition onto the bus.

Additional phone calls to Caracas let us learn that there was increasingly bad weather moving toward both Tucacas and Barquisimeto. By 8:45pm the partly cloudy sky was becoming more cloudy. At 9:15pm we were now set up at the darkened sites, each one patrolled by two guards. Several cloud layers were present. By 9:40pm the entire sky was overcast and every so often a flash of lightning was observed over the ocean. The partial phase of the lunar eclipse had begun.

By 10:09pm totality was not yet evident as the sky was still mostly overcast. A few stars could be seen by 10:20 in the northern sky between clouds. The clouds seemed to move with no discernible pattern from the east (Caribbean Sea) toward land. Now we could get a brief glimpse of what we thought was the moon in totality. There was still a small sliver on the upper limb that could be spied. It looked very grim.

At 10:50pm a few more patches of stars emerged, but clouds still covered 80% of the sky. To the south, we now could see a lightning flash here and there, and hear a thunder clap. The moon tried to peek out. At my site, some 3.28 km north of the graze line, it seemed like there was still a chance to see the occultation. Richard and Becky's station was 2.6km southeast and we had no idea if their weather conditions were much different. The occultation was set to begin at 11:01pm Eastern Time. By 10:59pm we located the star and its companion, about 7.4 magnitude. Both were close to the now darkened lunar south pole. But just seconds before 11:01 a high cloud enveloped the moon letting us still see it naked eye, but not through the telescope, the contrast with the video monitor being too low to detect. The moon was 67 degrees above the eastern horizon. A massive area of completely clear sky could be seen just two degrees to the north of the moon! The high cloud hung in place through the entire occultation and pulled back at 11:15pm revealing the final 14 minutes of a colorful eclipse.

As the whole group reassembled at our site, lightning flashed in the direction of Barquisimeto. Both sites turned out to be clouded over at the critical time, thus ending my fourth attempt in 15 years to develop new data on the size of the moon. At midnight our caravan returned on the road by which we came. The student group sang "Happy Birthday" to Becky whose birth date was on the next morning. By 3:15am we were in our hotel and asleep.

On February 27, it was lunch time and our group met again for the short drive to the Barquisimeto airport. A visiting professional astronomer from Mexico was also on the bus with us. We sadly said good-bye to our Venezuelan hosts who began the eight hour trip to their campus located in Merida. (On the way back they encountered severe flooding due to the intense storms of the previous night which also caused fatalities).

Our passage through the Barquisimeto was unique--it has absolutely no security. Nobody checked any carry-on or checked luggage nor were there any metal detectors or body searches. I had never seen an airport like this. We speculated on just many guns or hand grenades we could have carried on board had we been terrorists! After reaching Caracas and paying homage to Burger King, we found our scheduled Air Aruba flight was not Air Aruba after all, but a depowered DC-9 operated by an airline called Zuliana. With more uncertainty on the part of all the passengers as to whether we were even on the correct plane, it took off an hour early and before long we arrived safely in Aruba.

I discussed further plans for the next total eclipse of the sun in 1998 with our Venezuelan hosts, since the southern edge would pass over the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo. They were encouraged to work with a university in Colombia to plan to get observers to the north limit of the eclipse so that they could help us continue our solar radius correction experiments. Colombia, like Venezuela, is not safe these days but we hoped that with proper planning this cooperation could be successful in two years time.

The other expeditions in the USA observing the same star reported mixed results. An attempt in Colorado was not only clouded out, but also snowed out. Observations were turned in from California and one other area while clouds interfered east of Colorado. A strong shift was reported in the star's position which could have impacted our timings had we seen it.

We would like to thank Marge Nunez and her father for helping immensely in making our contacts in Venezuela. Also thanks to Dr. Rosenzweig for the unending cooperation and email contacts as well as coordinating hotel and ground transport; to Dr. Naranjo (who has discovered nearly 200 new asteroids using a 1 meter Schmidt telescope) for helping me to monitor the star during the eclipse and coordinating the National Guard support; the Dean of Universidad de los Andes for funding use of the bus, staff and students whose eagerness was evident throughout the whole experience.