Sarah Marwick, a general practitioner from Birmingham, has been chasing eclipses for the past 25 years, traveling to France, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Libya, China, the Arctic Circle, Wyoming and now Toronto .
by Claire Gilbody Dickerson, news reporter
Sunday 07 April 2024 03:56 UK
Sarah Marwick’s alarm went off at 4 a.m. Tuesday. It was time for my kids and partner to get ready for our flight from Heathrow Airport to Toronto with a stop in Chicago. A 3,500-mile journey to view the seventh total solar eclipse has begun.
“I think it’s kind of an addiction,” the slightly jet-lagged 51-year-old general practitioner from Birmingham said over coffee during his first morning call with Sky News from his Toronto hotel room.
Sarah is getting ready Monday’s total solar eclipse This will wow viewers across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
She has visited France, Africa, Libya, China, Svalbard, and Wyoming. Her first experience of the moon being in perfect alignment with the sun and Earth inspired her to continue chasing total solar eclipses.
At the time, it was 1999. She was just graduating from college in her 26th year when she traveled to Reims, France with her family for the event.
Although there were thick clouds in the sky, Sarah said it was still “the most surreal experience” and felt like “some kind of apocalypse movie, with darkness looming in front of you”.
“The solar eclipse was perfect.”
p>Sarah is “torn between” experiencing a solar eclipse, but if she had to choose a favorite, she would go canoeing on a trip to Zimbabwe and Zambia and camp on a sand island surrounded by hippos. He said that it must have been his experience when he did it.
“It was the most glorious day…the eclipse was perfect. I was completely hooked at that point.”
During a total solar eclipse, the sky darkens, as if at dawn or dusk, and a halo forms around the sun as the sun’s light is blocked by the moon.
During her trip to Zimbabwe and Zambia, the eclipse wasn’t as dark as Sarah expected, “more like a 360-degree sunset.”
“There was a black hole in the middle of the sky where the sun should be, and it was just amazing,” she said.
The next time I visited was Libya in 2006.
When asked what inspired her to travel to the war-torn country, Sarah said she traveled before the 2011 NATO-led invasion aimed at overthrowing dictator Muammar Gaddafi. I answered that I did.
She said she felt a little “hairy” at times and “wasn’t in a good place, but she wasn’t a mess.”
“It never gets old”
In 2008, Sarah’s hobby led her to travel to China with a group of fellow eclipse enthusiasts.
“It wasn’t just a holiday to watch the eclipse. This was a group of 60 people, all with about 10 cameras,” she said.
“It turns out I’m not the only crazy person in the world who does something like this.”
When asked if she ever gets tired of chasing eclipses, she answered flatly: “You never get used to the sight, and it never gets old…It’s different every time.”
Svalbard between the North Pole and Norway
After several years on vacation due to impractical locations, Sarah flew to Norway with her family, but left her children in Oslo to catch a glimpse of the 2015 solar eclipse in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Circle. .
“It was really amazing. It was like -26 degrees Celsius. We were basically on the Arctic ice sheet with the mountains behind us,” she said.
“It was incredible. The light was reflecting off the ice and it was so bright, but then it went dark.”
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A 2017 trip to Wyoming that included a stop in Yellowstone National Park was the first time her children, then ages 5 and 8, saw a total solar eclipse.
Sarah explained how she chooses which total solar eclipses to chase, saying it depends on affordability as well as practicality, but she also plans to plan a trip around the spectacle. .
“This is a really good excuse to go places you wouldn’t necessarily choose to go to otherwise,” she said.
Now in Toronto, she’s excited to watch Monday’s solar eclipse, joking that she’s suffering from “withdrawal symptoms.”
So why do it?
“I’m not religious at all,” Sarah said. “But it’s almost as close to a religious experience as you can get without being religious.
“The universe has this amazing vision for you, but you also know that you are very small.
“It’s happening, you can’t control it, this is bigger than you, but you can enjoy it, and the light will turn on again and the universe will return to its original state. …But if you’ve ever seen a total solar eclipse, that changes you forever.”
