Hello good people
My name is Desirée and I am writing on the behalf of our little eclipse group.
In 2006 we gathered a group of 9 friends and went to Turkey to see a solar eclipse, most of our group had never seen such a phenomena and after this experience we are all very exited and have our minds set on going to Japan to see the eclipse in 2009 22th of Juli.
In Turkey we joined a
trance/dance festival and saw the eclipse with many thousands of wonderful people from all over the world. There were also many Japanese people and we were handed a flyer describing a
similar event on Amami island , unfortunately everything is in Japanese.
However the eclipse will only last about 1 minute on Amami and we want to get the maximum length - around 6 minutes.
This will be possible from the Tokara Islands, but everything is already booked on these islands - so what to do?
We can also see the eclipse south of Shanghai, but if it is possible we would like to join the party at Amami islands right after the eclipse and the perfect situation will be from a boat/ferry tour in the neighbourhood.
We have seen some rumors of different boat trips on the Internet, but again the relevant sites are in Japanese and are therefore very hard for us to investigate.
Are any of you going to the eclipse or festival?
Anyone have a big boat?
(We actually have one educated sailor/seafarer in the group)
Are there anyone that can help us regarding these boat trips, booking, links, translation - any sort of help will be greatly appreciated ?
Other good ideas regarding the eclipse?
We will also stay in Tokyo for some days and anything you can recommend will be appreciated and looked into.
Since we have to go across half the world we have decided to take around the world trip, with 4 to 5 stops, our first dinner (of many) with planning will take place in 7 days and so far we are at least 10 people joining the trip.
Last I will urge you all to see the solar eclipse - it is a wonderful and thrilling experience, The eclipse in 2009 will be the longest eclipse in more than a 100 years. I will be the third time i experience an eclipse and if I'm lucky it will not be the last.
Anyone planning a trip to the eclipse are velcome to use this thread, the more info we can gather, the better
Cheers