Last year, during a brief conversation with a friend, he mentioned how cool it would be to see the total solar eclipse that was going to take place the next year in Egypt. I agreed and thought how amazing an experience that would be; yet we did not talk about it anymore until January of this year, when he called me and asked if I would be interested in going. Not only was I interested; I had already begun planning how to broadcast this amazing natural phenomenon live over the Internet.

The total solar eclipse of March 29, 2006 presented an interesting challenge to anyone who wished to broadcast it; mainly that the best places to view it were in far, out-of-the-way places that either had scarce populations or none at all and that had even fewer links to technology such as the Internet or reliable power supplies. Many people had said that Libya was the place to see the eclipse from but I disagreed. What better place to see the total solar eclipse, I thought, than from the land where the Pharaohs and one of history’s greatest civilizations once worshipped the sun, the giver of life. So here I am, sitting in Cairo, about 48 hours before the big moment, a little nervous and plenty excited.

I have spent the last 24 days in this beautiful country getting to know practically every nook and cranny of it. I have visited their famous resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh and did some scuba diving in the Red Sea at one of the most amazing sites I have had a chance to dive in a long time, I have seen temples and tombs that have withstood the tests of millenniums all the way from Abu Simbel to the south to Abydos in the middle and the pyramids to the north, I have had the privilege to meet and enjoy the hospitality of the descendents of these people of the Nile throughout my journey, and am now back in Cairo, planning to spend the day enjoying the beauties of its current Islamic culture before heading out to the Western Oasis to watch this spectacular natural phenomenon we have all been waiting for.

So by now, some of you may be wondering how I plan to pull this off. If one does a search online you will notice that there are not many people attempting to do what I am doing. In fact, there is only one other eclipse chaser/broadcaster who is planning roughly the same agenda as I and from his web site you can see that he is not very confident that he will be able to pull it off. Maybe he is right. One thing I have been learning on this trip is that control is an illusion, like an oasis in the desert, which once you think you have it, can easily slip between your fingers like sand through an hourglass. The best I can hope for is that the Gods will be happy, spread the clouds and give us a clear view of this wondrous gift; this beautiful moment that we can all share together in awe, under the sun as one.

We plan to leave Cairo Tuesday afternoon in a private car with two local drivers. In the back seat, Corey and I will try to get whatever rest we can during this nine to eleven hour drive (depending on conditions and checkpoints). Our plan was originally to broadcast from Sollum, a coastal town on the Mediterranean, however, since local weather reports have been inconsistently predicting rain at one moment and then sunny days at the next, we have decided to venture further inland to the beautiful town of Siwa in the Western Oasis. Of course, our main concern here is weather. If we have cloud cover or rain, not only will we not see the eclipse, but also my satellite will fail to connect without a clear view of the sky. So, considering how crucial this issue is to our mission, Siwa, a small town in the middle of the Sahara desert, which sometimes goes 40 years without rain, seems like our best chance of avoiding any weather.

Now for you technophiles, here are some of the details of what I am using to pull this off. Of course, I have my nice Sony Digi-Cam to get some professional-quality footage of the event, which will be posted to the web site after the fact, I have a smaller and more compact/lightweight Samsung camcorder which will serve as my webcam for you live viewers at home, which won this position due to its zoom and USB webcam capabilities, and I have my beautiful Panasonic DMZ FZ-20 that I will be using for photographing the event. Each of these cameras will be fitted with black polymer filters, which I picked up from Thousand Oaks Optical before the trip, to ensure that no equipment gets burnt out and that I return home with the full use of my eyes.

Now comes the information about the hardest part of all of this; getting Internet access out in these desolate regions. I spent a lot of time researching this, and luckily, I have received confirmation while here that I made the right decision. I decided upon renting a regional BGAN unit, which is a small satellite transmitter that connects to an Inmarsat satellite with a fixed location over Africa. Although I rented everything through Outfitters Satellite Inc. in the states, which has by far been the costliest part of this entire endeavor, I found out upon arrival here that I could have rented it from here in Cairo and not have had to lug it around with me. That does not bother me though because I love having the piece of mind of knowing that I have everything squared away and ready to go. As long as I have a clear view of the sky, I should have no problem connecting to the satellite and transmitting the broadcast of the event to my server in the states, which will in turn serve as the hub where each of you can connect to and receive the transmission.

While in Cairo earlier in my trip, I conducted a very successful test, which can be seen on my web site, and am confident that we are ready to go. All we can do now is sit back, relax, enjoy the next couple of days and pray for good weather. I hope you are all as exited as I am and ready for the big moment. Thanks again to all of you who have supported me and have wished me well throughout the trip. Your thoughts have been with me always and have helped give me the energy to see this through. Thanks again.