The second was the night of the 27th, the day before we planned to leave for the eclipse location, my batteries in my laptop would no longer hold a charge. I could not believe it. This was actually the second time this happened while in a foreign country and I knew from my first experience what the problem was. Apparently, although the power supply says it can handle the 220 voltage in Egypt, it really cannot very well, so I needed a new power supply. I contacted HP and they said that I could find a solution by visiting the authorized HP service center in Cairo. Well, after about four hours of looking for it in a cab, we found the address they gave me but they had moved about 30 kilometers away. I could not believe it. Not only that but the person at the location I arrived to told me that they would not be able to get me a new power supply anyway, even if I found them, I decided to abort that plan and visit a Radio Shack for another solution. Luckily, they had a car inverter which, although it meant I was going to have to stay near the car, would provide an adequate solution. So, after heart-pounding situation number two, we were again on track and ready to go.

My first question to Ramy, one of the two drivers we contracted to drive us out to the Western desert of Egypt from Cairo for our 24-hour round-trip marathon nightmare, was "have you ever been to Sollum?" "No," he replied, "this is going to be an adventure." Well, I don't think he realized at the time how right he was. I was already pretty nervous when he arrived half an hour late. We were not part of an organized tour group, nor did we have any scientific information about the eclipse. We were simply planning on going to a couple of locations where people were suppose to be and go from there. We had done plenty of research, were pretty confident of our plan, and had given ourselves plenty of extra time. The reason we left the location open like this was because of weather. Our thoughts were that if it continued to rain, as it had in Cairo (another nerve racking situation) than we would have to look for a place with no rain), and have a backup plan.

It was about 6:30 pm when we were picked up and were on our way out to Alexandria, our first stop for dinner. I had just about started to relax when the main road to Alexandria we were on was unexpectedly closed and we were forced off of it and onto a back road, under construction, with no signage or signal of where we were going. We traveled on that road for about an hour before we even saw anyone. Of course we passed Alexandria and now had to decide now whether to back track to get to there or skip it and keep going. For the sake of time and peace-of-mind, we skipped it and kept going to our final destination.

Of course, having our drivers stop at every person they saw and ask for directions did not make me feel any better. Neither did the fact that it was obvious that they did not really know where we were going nor did they have a map to help guide the way. Ironically, just the night before, a friend had told Corey and I during dinner that everything in Egypt takes longer than you expect it to and we were now experiencing first had what he told us. Luckily, I had somewhat expected delays and planned for them which is why we left eighteen hours before the eclipse for a drive that should have only taken nine hours or so. If we hadn't, we would have missed it for sure, as we arrived to our first location at 6 am and quickly realized that it was a complete mistake. Everyone who was there had headed out early that morning for Sollum, the official spot; so, after discussing our options for about thirty seconds, we turned around and raced out to Sollum. It was now seven am, five hours before totality and we were about 520 kilometers away!

Needless to say, we were going well past the speed limit the entire way back on a practically deserted road in the Sahara Desert, and we would have easily made it with more than enough time, if it was not for the fact that our driver neglected to mention that we needed gas and did not get any at our last stop. So, about 80 kilometers before the next gas station we completely ran out! "Ok," I thought, "this is it. It's all over." A bus came by within a few minutes and Ramy hopped on it in search of gasoline while Corey and I stayed behind with all of our equipment and the other driver that could not speak english. About an hour had passed and I had practically given up all hope. It was now 10:15 am and we were still more than 280 kilometers away, with the eclipse starting within two hours, missing one driver, and in a car with no gas (video of our location shown above). During that time, the only thing I could think of doing was to plan out a few options for what we could do to try to salvage the situation. My most pressing problem was basically that I needed about an hour to setup the satellite and cameras for the broadcast, so we needed to be at the eclipse location by 11:06, the time we were expecting totality, in order to set everything up.

Luckily, at about the time that Ramy arrived with some gasoline, we realized that at our new location, Sollum, totality would not start until 12:38 pm (which is why I think some people had problems watching the live broadcast as I had the time for another location posted on my site) which gave us an extra 30 minutes to get there; revitalizing my plans and hopes. "Floor it!" We kept telling Ramy and Samer, "we're not going to make it," as we would look out the car window with our filters at the sun, then to our watches, then to the signs on the side of the road that told us how far we were. This part was the worst. Every two minutes we would repeat the same process... 180 kilometers, what time is it? How far is the moon in? 160 kilometers, what time is it? How far is the moon in? 120... 100... 80. By the time we got to 80 kilometers I actually started thinking that we might just make it. We started seeing people on the side of the road looking up to the sun, but we told ourselves that we would not stop until we saw people with telescopes and cameras, which we figured would confirm the location of totality (the place where it will become night because the moon completely covers the sun).

So, at about 12:20 pm, 18 minutes before totality, we saw it. Rows and rows of cars, vans, trailers, telescopes, cameras, and people everywhere. "Pull over, I shouted. This is it. Stop! Anywhere." So we did just that, I already had all the equipment unpacked and sprawled out in the car and instructions for Corey on what he needed to do to help me get setup as quickly as possible. I could not believe it, but with some Flash Gordon action, we actually did it, we got everything setup, including the satellite, connected and transmitting, with the video camera hookup, another video camera recording and my photo camera setup as well. If it was not for the fact that the sun kept moving, I would have been able to relax a little at this point, however, I kept having to move between the three cameras to keep them all focused on the main event. It was at about 12:32 that I finally got the live broadcast started, less than 10 minutes before the big moment. It was truly amazing, but not over yet.

While everyone was in awe, watching the amazing moment, I was racing back and forth, looking at each one, snapping pictures, turning cameras, checking the images being sent to my server and trying to confirm anyway I could that everything was working correctly. Luckily, at the diamond ring moment, I actually calmed down for just a moment, took off the camera filters and got the amazing diamond ring shot you see in the video. Although I had more to film and broadcast, it was at this moment that I felt at least a mild sense of relief. "We did it!" Corey and I said to each other. We could not believe it. So much had happened in the last couple of days and we were now standing in complete darkness at about 12:40 pm with sounds of cheer in the background and people yelling "Allah akbar," "Praise God," and many other phrases and cheer and joy as some dropped to their knees and began to pray. The moment was short, however, and we started to hear people yell, "filters, filters," basically telling everyone it was no longer safe to look at the sun without one on. I put the filters back on each cameras, made sure they were all still working and began the process to end the live broadcast and upload the video.

After shutting down the live broadcast, I did a quick pan of the people around us and began editing the video to put online. It was a little nerve racking as well, but I actually got it up before totality hit its next location in Turkey. High fives and hand-shaking was taking place amongst everyone around. I was actually in shock. I really could not believe it was done. People at the location were calling home and telling their friends to watch the video I had just put up, I was starting to get emails from friends of my own congratulating me as I took one last look at everything before breaking it all down and packing up for our ten-hour car ride back to Cairo for our flight which was scheduled to leave within thirteen hours. So, in case you were wondering, that is why I said in the previous post, that I could not believe that we actually pulled it off. Murphy's Law could not have been more in effect during this entire mission, but we did it. And not only that, but if I can say so myself, it is one of the best videos I have seen of it so far online. I want to thank everyone once again for all your well-wishes and prayers, I know they helped make this possible.