Eclipse Trip Diary - 1
Montreal Eclipse
I am writing this account of my August 2026 trip to see a second eclipse after viewing my first in my garden in Montreal in April 2024. I think, as we get older, we tend to live more in the moment. Does everyone become more analytical? When I tried to recall what I did yesterday, I realized that many of my activities had faded into a blur, so I am looking to put interesting events in writing before I forget them.
The trip began years before the actual departure on Sunday August 2, 2026. There was a total eclipse of the sun in Montreal in April of 2024. Rita and I were quite excited about the event, but we weren’t going to do anything complex to view it. Totality could be viewed where we lived! Always more organized than me, Rita had ordered special glasses on Amazon to view the sun without resorting to unsatisfying methods of witnessing the event such as shadow boxes.
In the late afternoon about an hour before the eclipse began, we set up folding chairs in our back alley with a clear view of the sun. As the phenomenon of the partial eclipse began, I wondered if even the minimal effort that we had invested in seeing the event had been worth it. Looking at the sun through the special glasses was not particularly interesting. Rita seemed a little more enthusiastic. She began giving progress reports with increasing enthusiasm. “Oh look! The sun is half obscured! It’s getting a little darker.” Things didn’t seem noticeably different… to me.
And then… totality was achieved.
To me, it felt like God had flipped a switch, and the world had transformed. Suddenly, the alley turned into a negative image of its former self. Animals became silent, and the world assumed an otherness that I had never before experienced. For what seemed a very long time, I explored that transformed environment. Totality lasted for only 1 minute and 27 seconds, but it felt much longer.
Booking a Repeat Performance
At some point this winter, Rita and I realized that there was going to be another eclipse going across the Atlantic from Iceland to Spain and that it would fall on my birthday, August 12. We talked about traveling to Spain to view it. I looked up a couple of AirBnB stays, and they seemed incredibly expensive. I don’t remember exactly when it occurred to me that one could view the eclipse from the sea, but we decided that it was definitely worth looking into. We had cruised on Royal Caribbean eleven years earlier. Our cruising habit had come to a close as my mother-in-law’s health deteriorated, and Rita became concerned that something would happen to her while we were at sea. In any case, I discovered that there were a number of cruises that featured an eclipse. I originally wanted to be in the Mediterranean ending up in Athens, but Rita did not want to be gone for too long. We found the cruise that we eventually booked: nine nights out of Southampton England with stops in Spain and Portugal.
I went on the Royal Caribbean website and had a surprise. There was only one interior cabin with a view onto the Royal Promenade that was left. I reserved; I could cancel the reservation for a short time. Rita wasn’t home. I told her what I had done when she walked in the door. There was a moment of hesitation and then the decision was made… we were going on a trip! We needed the time off, and eventually, we had to take the chance that my mother-in-law would survive.
While the cruise was a few months in the future, it seemed unreal, but as the date approached, I began making arrangements. First, I booked the flight. Then I found a place to stay in Portsmouth England for a few days between the flight and the cruise, then I looked for excursions in the cities that the ship was going to visit. People asked me why I had chosen Portsmouth. The answer is that I had looked at websites about the city online after looking at similar information about Southampton and a few others. I wanted to be in England a few days before we boarded the ship, and Portsmouth seemed old and urban and interesting. Last, I looked at train connections to Portsmouth and bus connections from the train station to our little rented apartment.
Boarding the flight was almost an anticlimax. After the travel arrangements, the packing, taking careful note of what sizes of luggage were permitted, the purchase of a travel scale, the failed attempt to purchase an electric current and outlet converter, the trying-on of clothes, we were both exhausted. There was construction going on at the airport… of course, and we opted to take the connector to the terminal from the new REM line at the Des Sources station. I had never taken it before, and we were uncertain of where to tell my brother-in-law to drop us with all our luggage. In the end, everything worked out.
As I made my way to our seats on the airplane after waiting for three hours in the terminal, I realized that I had left my rain jacket on the chair I was sitting in at the waiting area of the gate. The person I was sitting next to on the plane suggested strongly that I tell the stewardess. The stewardess let me deboard the plane. I grabbed my jacket off the chair, and ran back onto the plane holding up the jacket in a gesture of victory. I was exhausted, but I felt that the trip had begun on a positive note!
Gatwick to Portsmouth
Six hours and forty-five minutes later, we got off the plane in Gatwick. But we had lost five hours because of time zones, so local time was 9:50 in the morning. Both legs of the trip were really well-timed to take the change in time into account. Upon arriving in Portsmouth, we were a little jet-lagged, but all in all, not helplessly exhausted. One of our pre-arrangements was to buy what is called an e-sim for our cellphones. It wasn’t as easily activated as the seller claimed it would be, but we left the airport a little confused but with data service on our phones. This stood us in good stead during our time in England. Furthermore, the train station was located in the airport which is super convenient. If I had known, I would not have bought a train fare online. They’re available at the station, and one doesn’t have to buy a first-class ticket which is good all day. One can buy a fare for the next train leaving. There were connections to Portsmouth almost every hour.
We wheeled our three bags onto the train. The use of wheels on luggage has transformed the way that we travel; it’s so much easier! We got installed in a seat with a table at the end of the wagon, so that most people did not have to squeeze past our luggage in the aisle. A few stops into the trip, a woman took the bench facing us across the table. She initially began reading what appeared to be the Bible. I figured that I shouldn’t disturb her, but the trip had a duration of about three hours, and that silence could only last for so long.
Pam Breaud is a minister from Louisiana. She was travelling to take a cruise on Virgin where her son is a dancer. Her cruise departed from Portsmouth. She was going on the trip with her sister Margaret whom she was going to meet in Portsmouth. The last two hours were spent in animated conversation, and Pam vowed that she would call us while we were all in Portsmouth. When the train arrived in Portsmouth, we all herded our bags off the platform. It seemed that Pam’s hotel was not far from our AirBnB digs. I had figured that Rita and I would take a city bus to our destination. Pam whipped out her cellphone, looked up the places on Google maps and suggested that we walk. The app said it was about ten minutes away on foot.
And so began our introduction to Portsmouth. The wheels on our luggage did not perform best on cobblestones, but they worked. We crossed the impressive square in front of city hall and the library and then wobbled into a pedestrian street facing a beautiful theater. As we got close to our apartment, I realized that we were early, but I went to the unit anyway. No one was there, and there was no key in the lockbox that we were supposed to use to get the key.
I had seen a little café on our street, the Terrace Café, a half-block back. Our entourage rolled into the place. We were greeted by an exceptionally friendly woman behind the counter. The shop turned out to be the café for the student center of the University of Portsmouth. It was in a remodeled historic building, a former gun house stable block and naval residence. The premises dated back to 1883 and there were quite interesting panels on the wall about the history of the building which had started as a military barracks. We ordered a small breakfast, coffee and a roll, and sat in the sunlit addition in the rear. Eventually, my message to the AirBnB host was answered. Jay said that he and his wife were actually in the unit cleaning, but that I could drop off our luggage in the apartment.
I walked over to the apartment with our largest piece of luggage. By then, our host, Jay, had put the key in the lockbox. I opened the vestibule door. What I had not counted on was that although the apartment was on the second floor, there was a byzantine set of hallways and stairways to navigate to get to the front door. I hauled the large bag up the stairs, across the hallways, up more stairs, through another door and finally got to our unit.
The effort was worth it! The little apartment had a living-dining-kitchen unit that gave onto the front of the building. That room had high wide windows that admitted a breeze and copious amounts of sunlight. The décor was modern, very barebones, but comfortable. The bedroom faced the rear. The bathroom was a little bizarre, particularly the shower. There was no curtain, just a glass barrier. The floor of the shower was raised and sloped down to the drain. Every time I took a shower, I feared that the shower pan would overflow… but it didn’t. The apartment became a gracious base of operations for our next four days in Portsmouth. After I dropped off my bag, I went back to the little café to rejoin Rita and Pam. Pam promised to call us on WhatsApp, our only phone service, once she hooked up with her sister, and rolled her luggage on to her hotel.
When Rita and I got back to our apartment, we met Jay and his wife, our hosts. They were Bangladeshi, but Jay’s accent was local. We chatted. I asked whether they had an outlet converter for North American outlets. They regretfully said no, and cleaning done, they left. I guess at that point jetlag caught up with us. We opened our luggage, arranged a few things and crashed on the bed. Thin and lumpy, the mattress was one of the worst parts of the apartment. It didn’t matter. The two of us slept like the dead… for about two hours. The doorbell rang. Jay was at the door. He had found an outlet converter at a hardware store and brought it over. They were wonderful hosts… there when you needed them… and otherwise invisible.
I did get back to sleep after Jay rang and when I got up, I realized that we were going to have a pretty easy time with jetlag. When I got up, I started looking for something to do and for something to eat so we set off for Gunwharf Quays. Portsmouth’s outlet shopping mall. I had read about the place online. It had been created from the quays of the Portsmouth naval base that were no longer in use. Rita and I walked there; it was that close. We marveled that we could be in Great Britain, and the malls felt eerily similar to those up and down the East Coast of the United States.
We wandered from one picturesque harbour view to another, checked out some of the stores including the Marks and Spencer, which as stated before, seemed very similar to stores in Canada. I got hungry and we did our usual procedure of checking menus, and selected a place called the Cosy Club on the second floor of the center, away from the hustle of the pedestrian traffic below. The restaurant was ornately decorated which gave us a lot to talk about: the paintings, the tile work, the chandeliers etc. The waitress was also very relaxed and warm… chatty. She mentioned that it was not a busy night. Rita ordered a vegan hamburger and I ordered a curry. I liked the food. Rita felt that it was okay but nothing special. I spent most of the trip trying to figure out if restaurant food in England was very expensive or if I was simply out-of-tune with the cost of restaurant meals in general. Our meal cost seventy-seven Canadian dollars for two.
We walked through the campus of the University of Portsmouth and back to our apartment. The unit’s location was extremely central. Using our converter, we plugged in to recharge our phones, but I was still wary of plugging in my computer, fearful that the higher voltage in England would burn out my unit. A few days later, I came upon an article online that advised checking the input requirements on the plug of the computer and reassured, I then plugged in the computer. I was extremely relieved when the unit began charging and didn’t melt.
The next day, Tuesday August 4, we got up and returned to the little café, the Terrace Café, where we had eaten breakfast the day before. I had a full vegetarian English breakfast with fake bacon and fake sausage which were really good, although the ‘sausage’ tasted like mashed potatoes. Afterwards, we wondered whether the trend in Britain to offer vegetarian meals was because of an increased number of vegetarians or an increased number of Moslems… or both. In any case, there was no shortage of vegetarian fare on offer.
After breakfast, we walked to downtown, which was north, the opposite direction of the Gunwharf Quays. Because of construction on Hampshire Terrace, we had to navigate a detour, and our path took us towards the same charming pedestrian street that we had used when we walked to our apartment from the train station. Just before we got there, we passed a very old-fashioned barber shop with the barber sitting in a chair looking very bored. Rita generally cuts my hair at home, but we hadn’t had time before the departure. Whatever… I’m on vacation… even a barbershop can be of interest! I thought as I went in. Our barber, who was from Syria, did as good a job as one can do with my bald pate, constantly consulting with Rita… who judged at the end of the process that it was a pretty good cut. Once again, I was surprised at the cost of things, but with the beard trim, the adventure cost thirty pounds… almost sixty Canadian dollars.
Afterwards, we went along the same pedestrian mall that we had traveled the day before, arriving at the same square in front of city hall and the library with its iconic statue of Queen Victoria, and finally, we walked past the train station itself. I inquired about trains to Southampton, the next leg of our journey in three days; they were frequent. Then we came to the downtown pedestrian shopping street, aptly named Commercial Road, which was obviously suffering the effects of its proximity to the Gunwharf Quays. There were a number of important vacancies… for me the vacated premises of Debenhams, a large department store located across from the iconic Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Fountain stood out. I got the feeling, however, that the street was bravely holding on despite lower shopper numbers.
Perhaps as a bulwark against the decline brought on by the competition from Gunwharf Quays, an interior shopping plaza, the Cascades Shopping Centre, had been created, incorporating some of the older stores on the west side of the street. Rita and I went in and wound up at Primark, a clothing store chain. That’s where I saw it on the reduced-for-quick-sale rack in the men’s department. For nine pounds I purchased yet another loud, colourful shirt with palm trees… I can’t resist them.
Shirt in hand, we got onto a bus headed south to Clarence Pier. I had a mission! Two people from Montreal who had each spent time in Portsmouth during their childhoods had asked me to bring back a stone from the beach. I looked on Google maps and Clarence Pier seemed to be the nearest stretch of beach that I could get to in order to get my stones. Between my accent and my obvious uncertainty about where I was going, we were very identifiable as tourists. People were wonderful including the bus driver. Everyone gave us directions and chatted. We alighted at the right stop (as they say there) and walked through a green park leading to the pier. I didn’t realize that Clarence Pier was much more than just a pier. There was a honky-tonk seaside district at the pier called Funland. We walked through the carnival games and rides as I recalled my childhood at the New Jersey Shore.
The area was obviously at the seaside because the cold wind blowing off the English Channel was blowing uncomfortably cold. We wound up watching a hovercraft depart and found ourselves at a rocky expanse leading to the water which people seemed to call a beach. Rita took the mission of stone selection very seriously and spent a long time examining stones while I watched her from the boardwalk and silently froze. Once she had finally made her selections, I was ready to head towards warmer regions. Rita stopped to photograph a monument near the hovercraft departure area.
We finally set off to catch the return bus. As we left the seashore, it got warmer and I realized that we were quite close to our apartment. We walked there, and at that point, I was quite ready to take a nap when the phone feature of WhatsApp rang. It was Pam from the train. She and her sister had finally connected. Pam had initially gone to the wrong hotel, a different Holiday Inn, but everything had worked out, and they wanted to take an Uber to meet us for dinner. I took a quick nap!
I went through the labyrinth of stairs and corridors to get to the street and waited in front of our building. Pam had messaged that she was eight minutes away. She wasn’t. I waited a long time and then went upstairs. As soon as I got to the apartment, she phoned that they had arrived and I headed downstairs with Rita to meet them. Pam explained that the driver had been quite chatty and had recommended a Chinese restaurant. In our travels, we had passed a Vietnamese restaurant that was on our street, Viet Quan. The menu looked good, but when we passed, the restaurant was full… a good sign, but still, we opted to walk to the other restaurant.
That walk took about twenty minutes, and on the way, we got a chance to meet Pam’s sister, Margaret, who was a math teacher in a high school in California. When we got to the restaurant it was also full and so we decided to return to Viet Quan. It was a good choice. By the time we got there, the restaurant had emptied out, and we had a wonderful meal served by a charming waiter who likely seemed to be the son of the owner.
On my way to the barber shop that morning, I had sent Pam a photo on WhatsApp of a bar with drag shows and karaoke that was across the street from the barber with the caption ‘Tonight’s activity?’. Little did I realize that Pam and Margaret were enthusiastic karaoke singers. They were ready to go, and I love karaoke. Even though the bar looked really seedy… why not? It was only about a ten-minute walk from the restaurant.
There was a bouncer at the door. He was actually quite friendly. Karaoke was starting at 10PM, in ten minutes. We went in. There weren’t very many people there, but those who were standing around looked very weird. It took a while for the music to start. You had to sign up on your phone. People began singing. Lights began flashing. Some people were good… some not so good. I ordered a beer, screwed up my courage and sent off my song selection from my phone.
I think I have a pretty good voice. I belted out City of New Orleans. Pam and Margaret were not far behind. Pam was pretty good! Rita observed, hesitant to perform but enjoying the atmosphere. Some of the people who sang came over and sang to us. Because there were so few people, there was a sense of community… weird but not uncomfortable. I think we all enjoyed ourselves. We left around midnight. By that time, the doorman was pretty chatty and actually enquired if we had had a good time. My honest answer was yes. We were around two blocks away from our apartment. We waited with Pam and Margaret for their uber to arrive. Our fast friendship was coming to an end. They were getting on their cruise ship the next day.
They sent us pictures from the cruise, but like so many friendships on trips, I doubt if we’ll ever see them again. In any case, we’re Facebook friends. The taxi came, and Rita and I walked to the apartment. Our first full day in Portsmouth had come to a close. In my opinion, it had been a really interesting introduction to the city.
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