This event goes through Pt Reyes National Seashore on a weekend. A 0.5 mag drop for up to 5 seconds, at 38 deg altitude in the southwest.
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Not good. Clouds looked to ruin all claimed stations east of Ted Swift, so the Jerry B track through the Olema area was available as my best choice. I did arrive in time - assuming all went well. But when I opened the black case to power up the VTI and Watec, I saw the plugs were already glowing... dimly. Clearly I'd forgotten to power off the box after my extensive tests about a week earlier, and the glow lights had slowly drained the battery. The voltage wouldn't power up the VTI or Watec. I tried some other options, and arrived at the only one that might work - set up the scope in front of the car and use the battery cables. But that would take at least another 14 minutes to accomplish, re-align the scope etc. I had 7 minutes left at this point. Game over. I got nothing. Ted's site was predicted to be partially cloudy and he got no data either. No one did. Oh well.
The Pt Reyes trail runs had some hiccups too. Most of the park trails are closed, and the tides were wrong for getting to Alamere Falls anyway. I did some trail runs around Limantour and Muddy Hollow, after a guerrilla campout on a ridge away from sight in the area.
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