‘I guess it’s an addiction’: Solar eclipse chaser travels from UK to Toronto to witness spectacle for 7th time

Published

1 year ago

April 7, 2024

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At 4am on Tuesday, Sarah Marwick’s alarm went off: it was time to get her children and partner ready for their flight from Heathrow to Toronto, with a stopover in Chicago. The 3,500-mile journey towards seeing her seventh total solar eclipse had begun.

“It’s kind of an addiction I guess,” the slightly jet-lagged 51-year-old GP from Birmingham said, coffee in hand, during a first-morning call with Sky News from her hotel room in Toronto.

Sarah is preparing for the total solar eclipse on Monday which will stun viewers across the US, Canada and Mexico.

She has so far travelled to France, Africa, Libya, China, Svalbard and Wyoming, as her first experience of the moon’s perfect alignment with the sun and earth made her want to keep chasing total eclipses.

Back then, it was 1999. She was 26 and had just finished university when she travelled with her family to Reims, France, for the event.

There were thick clouds in the sky but it was nonetheless the “most unworldly experience”, Sarah said, as it was like “some kind of end-of-days movie where you see this blackness just approaching you”.

‘The eclipse was perfect’

p>Sarah said she is “torn between” her eclipse experiences but if she had to choose a favourite it would be the one on a trip to Zimbabwe and Zambia, where she boarded a canoe and camped on a sand island surrounded by hippos.

“It was the most glorious day… the eclipse was perfect. I was absolutely hooked at that point.”

During a total solar eclipse, the sky falls dark as if it were dawn or dusk, and a halo forms around the sun as its light is blocked out by the moon.

During her trip to Zimbabwe and Zambia, the eclipse wasn’t as dark as Sarah expected it to be, it was “more like a 360-degree sunset”.

“There was a black hole in the middle of the sky where the sun should be and it was just stunning,” she said.

Next stop was Libya in 2006.

Asked what pushed her to travel to the conflict-torn country, Sarah said her trip predated the 2011 NATO-led invasion aimed at overthrowing its dictator, Muammar Gaddafi.

While it felt a bit “hairy” at times, she said, “it wasn’t in a good state, but it wasn’t in chaos”.

‘It never gets old’

In 2008, Sarah’s hobby took her on a trip to China with fellow eclipse lovers.

“That wasn’t just a holiday to see the eclipse. This was a group of 60 people who were all there bringing like 10 cameras with them,” she said.

“It made me know I’m not the only crazy person in the world that does this.”

Asked if she could ever get tired of chasing eclipses, she firmly said: “You never ever become used to a sight, it never gets old… it’s different every time.”

Svalbard, between the North Pole and Norway

After a few years off because of unpractical locations, Sarah flew to Norway with her family but left her children in Oslo so she could catch a glimpse of the 2015 eclipse in Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago on the Arctic Circle.

“It was absolutely stunning. It was like -26C, we were basically on an ice sheet in the Arctic Circle with these mountains behind,” she said.

“That one was incredible because the light reflected off the ice, it was so bright and then it got dark.”

A 2017 trip to Wyoming which included a stop at the Yellowstone National Park was the first time her children, at the time aged five and eight, saw a total solar eclipse.

Explaining how she goes about choosing which total eclipse she is going to chase, Sarah said it depends on affordability as well as practicality, while she will also strive to build a trip around the spectacle.

“It’s a really good excuse to go to places I wouldn’t have necessarily otherwise have chosen to go,” she said.

Now in Toronto, she is buzzing to see Monday’s eclipse as she jokes about suffering from “withdrawal symptoms”.

So why do it?

“I’m not in any way religious at all,” Sarah said. “But it’s almost as close to a religious experience you can get without being religious.

“The universe puts on this amazing spectacle for you, but equally you know you are so small.

“It’s happening, you cannot control it, this is bigger than you, but you can enjoy it and then the lights come back on and the universe gets on with its day… but if you’ve seen a total eclipse, it changes you forever.”

World

Donald Trump sending ‘top of the line’ weapons to support NATO in Ukraine war

Published

10 hours ago

July 15, 2025

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Donald Trump sending 'top of the line' weapons to support NATO in Ukraine war

Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.

Speaking with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.

“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States, going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”

Follow the latest here

It comes as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had a “very good conversation” with Mr Trump late on Monday. He thanked him for the “willingness to support Ukraine and to continue working together to stop the killings”.

Weapons being sent from to Ukraine include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which the country has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.

Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.

The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.

Mr Zelenskyy previously criticised Vladimir Putin’s “desire to drag [the war] out”, and said Kyiv was “working on major defence agreements with America”.

It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump over Mr Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.

During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call”, but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.

“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.

Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Mr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.

After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”

Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.

He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.

World

Trump announces weapons deal with NATO to help Ukraine – as he gives Putin 50-day ultimatum

Published

1 day ago

July 14, 2025

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Trump announces weapons deal with NATO to help Ukraine - as he gives Putin 50-day ultimatum

Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.

Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.

“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”

Follow the latest here

Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.

Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.

The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.

It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.

During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.

“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.

Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.

After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”

He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.

World

At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

Published

2 days ago

July 14, 2025

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.

Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.

The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.

It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.

The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.

Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.

But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.

It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.

Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.

Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.

That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.

The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.