Suzanne Harrington: Eclipse at sea provided a lesson in perspective

Travelling between France to England for the eclipse, SUZANNE HARRINGTON says she witnessed a different type of once in a lifetime event.

Underprepared, without as much as a colander or a cornflake box in my bag, I offer a passing child some crisps in exchange for a moment with his eclipse glasses. File picture: Romain Doucelin / Hans Lucas. 

The morning after the eclipse, my eyes are still a bit funny, having attempted to watch it through the micro-gaps of a straw hat instead of using proper eclipse glasses.

Other than a lone pre-departure text from the ferry company I’m about to travel with, advising passengers not to stare at the sun, the whole build-up passed me by, thanks to the rubbish wifi in far-flung corners of France. 

(Note to self: for the next total eclipse on September 23, 2090, squinting through a straw hat does not work. However, this may not be an issue as I will be dead by then).

It is all quite bizarre. Not what’s happening in the blue August skies overhead, but the way it’s prompting people to interact with each other 384,000km below, on the deck of a ferry. In a shimmering stretch of water between England and France, innate English reserve undergoes, temporarily, its own total eclipse.

As passengers converge on deck, squinting skyward, a once-in-a-lifetime event unfolds — strangers speak to each other, without having been formally introduced. People share binoculars, homemade pinwheel devices, all manner of ingenious ways of witnessing the eclipse using shadows on dinner plates and carefully positioned mobile phones.

The nerds amongst the group — both male and female — go into mansplaining overdrive, loudly narrating the celestial activities to kids who’d rather be on their phones, and to anyone else within earshot.

The ferry deck is transformed into an impromptu outdoor science lab as its passengers — predominantly English, not famous for their love of befriending strangers — chat to each other with what can only be described as animated enthusiasm.

In these brief few hours, everyone is an astronomer. One couple — in matching shorts and sandals — appear to have an actual telescope.

Underprepared, without as much as a colander or a cornflake box in my bag, I offer a passing child some crisps in exchange for a moment with his eclipse glasses; he hands them over somewhat reluctantly, too polite to accept my ultra-processed bribe, before hovering warily.

Somewhere unpronounceable in Spain’s Basque country, my sister encounters the kind of queues you’d normally associate with rock concerts, dead royals, or the January sales — except these queues are outside pharmacies selling eclipse glasses.

Lines snake around the block, tiny streets thronged with astro-tourists looking skyward, sleepy villages with tiny populations overwhelmed by eclipse-chasers. 

In the UK, newspapers report stocks of eclipse glasses running out — could Brexit possibly be blamed? — alongside predictably dire warnings not to stare at the sun.

In London, my partner ignores the official advice and temporarily blinds himself in his local park, before declaring the entire thing a bit meh.

Being at sea is, I realise, a memorable way of watching the moon move in front of the sun. 

I am reminded of our tininess within the universe — that for all our iPhones and Teslas and TikToks and self-importance, we remain nothing more than tiny specks of animated meat staring out into infinite space, wholly reliant on a distant sun to keep us alive. 

I contemplate our temporal nothingness within the endless vastness.

“Can I have my eclipse glasses back now?” asks the kid, interrupting my cosmic reverie.

He pauses, before adding, in an anxious rush: “My mum says not to talk to strangers.”