I flew to Mallorca for 24 hours for a risky totality — and almost missed it by 15 seconds

CAN PASTILLA, Mallorca — At 3:45 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 12, I turned off my alarm, crept downstairs and fed my slightly confused cat. Then I grabbed a single bag, drove half an hour to Cardiff Airport and boarded a flight to Mallorca.

By lunchtime the following day, I would be home again. It was a ridiculous thing to do for 1 minute, 36 seconds of darkness. But I had been supposed to watch the total solar eclipse from Greenland. When it became clear that I needed to stay home with my ailing cat rather than disappear for two weeks, I reluctantly abandoned that plan.

Then, two weeks before the eclipse, I started wondering whether I could somehow see totality anyway. My husband, Jamie, preparing for his trip to Greenland, suggested Mallorca. The eclipsed sun would be incredibly low, just a few degrees above the Mediterranean, but that was precisely the attraction: I could potentially watch the sun’s corona hanging above the horizon at sunset. The geometry was unlike any total solar eclipse I had seen before.

So I booked a flight. I couldn’t believe there were any seats left, this being the first total solar eclipse in Europe since 2015 and the first on the mainland since 1999, but word obviously hadn’t gotten around.

I landed at Palma de Mallorca Airport around 9:30 a.m. and walked to Can Pastilla, immediately southeast of the airport. The sky above me was blue, but that wasn’t what mattered. With the eclipse happening so close to the horizon, clouds and haze far out over the Mediterranean could ruin everything.

When I reached the beach, the western horizon was hazy. Using Xavier Jubier’s Interactive Google Maps, its link to PeakFinder and the Solar Eclipse Simulator on The Photographer’s Ephemeris, I had already worked out where I needed to be to see the entirety of the sun’s corona during totality. I began walking southeast along the beachfront promenade. The farther I walked, the more separation I would get between the totally eclipsed sun and mountains on the distant horizon.

For most of the afternoon, Can Pastilla seemed strangely oblivious to what was coming. It was brutally hot. People swam and sunbathed, but the promenade was almost empty. I walked for about an hour before seeing my first serious eclipse setup, two tripods standing alone.

Then I stopped at a bar for a drink. When I emerged about half an hour later, everything had changed. The promenade was packed. I suddenly realized I needed to secure enough space for my tripod, with an unobstructed view over the beach. I squeezed into a roughly three-foot-wide gap beside another photographer and started setting up.

Then things became even more chaotic. Minutes before totality, while I was still trying to get my equipment ready, a German journalist approached and asked to interview me. I agreed and spent about 5 precious minutes talking when I should have been concentrating on cameras, filters and focus.

The resulting article in the German-language Mallorca Zeitung described how I’d traveled from Wales specifically for the eclipse and brought two cameras to capture videos of totality, but quoted the most important part of my plan: during totality, I mainly wanted to watch with my own eyes. Ninety-six seconds was too precious to spend looking at a camera.

That proved to be exactly right. As the crescent sun became thinner, the light began to fade, and the previously distracted crowd started paying attention again. I could hardly believe I was there. Less than a week earlier, I’d expected to be sitting at home in Cardiff watching the eclipse online.

Now I could see the last sliver of the sun. I started my wide-angle camera a minute before totality and the second camera 30 seconds before. Then I took off the filters, picked up my binoculars and forgot about photography.

Then it happened, a diamond ring, and totality! Through binoculars, the corona looked surprisingly small and orange, hanging just above distant mountains. Instead of the familiar pearly-white, wispy corona I’d seen at previous eclipses, it looked almost like a glowing hole punched into the sunset sky. I started whooping.

Then came the colors. Blues, pinks and oranges swept across the horizon. A huge pink prominence appeared near the edge of the sun as totality began, and soon after a thin reddish arc of the sun’s chromosphere seemed to wrap around the other side of the moon’s silhouette.

Around me, the atmosphere was strangely casual. Some people chatted through totality. Others had been swimming shortly beforehand. This wasn’t the organized group of hardened eclipse chasers I was used to observing with, who knew exactly how precious those seconds were. For some people in Mallorca, it seemed almost like another evening stroll along the promenade.

Did they notice the orange corona, set against the bluish shadow of the moon, transform into purples and pinks as the second diamond ring ended totality? The thick atmosphere near the horizon, and perhaps the approaching cloud, had helped create an extraordinary palette. But it was almost too much.

About 15 seconds later, according to the eclipse watcher beside me, the cloud swallowed the sun. After all my doubts about flying to Mallorca, all the concern about haze over the Mediterranean and all the frantic preparations, the entire eclipse could so easily have been a washout. Instead, we’d seen every second of totality, just.

The whole trip cost me about £450, which for the chance to see a total solar eclipse like this was astonishingly little. By 1 p.m. the next day, I was back home in Cardiff, sitting with my cat.

It felt almost as though it hadn’t happened, like it was a dream. People thought I was slightly mad to fly to another country for 24 hours to experience 96 seconds of totality. But it hadn’t actually been that difficult. One small bag, a short flight, a hotel for the night and a walk along the beach, and I’d witnessed one of the most extraordinary eclipses of my life.

I learned long ago that totality is almost impossible to explain to someone who has only ever seen a partial eclipse. It’s like being let in on a secret. Once you know just how extraordinary those few minutes in the moon’s shadow can be, flying to Mallorca for 24 hours doesn’t seem crazy at all. In fact, for another 96 seconds in the moon’s shadow, I’d go much, much farther.

Image credits: ©GACarter, 2026

Full videos can be viewed here.

Published by Mallorca Zeitung at 20:17 on Aug. 12, 2026, so just 14 minutes before totality, headlined “Für 90 Sekunden Totalität nach Mallorca: Jill Carter reist aus Wales an.”
To Mallorca for 90 seconds of totality: Jill Carter travels from Wales

Jill Carter, 50, from Cardiff in South Wales, travelled to Mallorca especially for the solar eclipse. She landed on the island on Wednesday morning and will fly back again on Thursday.
For Carter, this is already her seventh total solar eclipse. What particularly impresses her is the moment of totality: that is when the corona becomes visible, and that sight, she says, is “absolutely beautiful.”

She brought two cameras with her to Playa de Palma. With a wide-angle shot, she hopes to capture the shadow sweeping across the landscape, while with a second camera she plans to photograph the corona. During totality itself, however, she mainly wants to watch with her own eyes: the roughly minute and a half is too precious to spend behind a camera.