This is a picture of me from June 2001 and it was taken in western Madagascar (Morombe). I was studying the eclipse track for the June 21 total solar eclipse. The centreline entered western Madagascar at the small village Morombe, after crossing the Mocambique channel.
A decision had to be made between watching totality from the beach in Morombe or moving to the even smaller, inland village, called Ambahiliky where the probability for clear weather is somewhat better.
Considering all the smokey fires the locals (Malagasy people) seemed to start constantly near every village, we (my brother and I) decided to stay at the empty beach in Morombe, where inland winds at least would keep the local smoke moving away from us.
We made this trip by ourselves and arrived in Morombe five days before totality, long before any eclipse charter tourists dared to arrive :-) Tourists are usually extremely rare here in the 'wild west' of Madagascar, and we got almost everyones attention just walking outside. But then, the day before totality, a large group of charter tourists arrived, and not only had they booked all the accomodation in town but the food as well (which is limited here!). Anyway, besides having to eat crackers for a few days the solar eclipse was GREAT!
