Totally Cosmic Eclipse

Roger Lavy, 35, a self-described entrepreneur, gazed up and out at the glowing western horizon. Then he came back to earth and took in the hundreds of people around him jammed onto the roof patio at Del Mar Plaza, all agog at the sky show that had just come and gone--a sunset eclipse.

“It was spectacular,” Lavy said. “We were thinking of moving to Pocatello, Idaho. We can get a four-bedroom house there for $57,000. With a basement!

“But when you see all these people, having this good of a time, this is what Southern California is all about,” Lavy said. “We’re staying.”

With the sun, the moon and humanity combining at sunset Saturday to provide a colorful Southern California spectacle, the verdict on the eclipse came ringing in loud and clear from the thousands of people who watched it from along the San Diego coastline, from lofty mountaintops and even from a mile high in a balloon: it was, like, you know, totally cosmic.

“It was pretty radical, it really was,” said Jay Kimball, a Del Mar balloon pilot who was drifting east at 5,000 feet for the show, a so-called “annular eclipse.” During the eclipse, the moon slid in front of the sun but, for truly astronomical reasons, it did not quite cover it, leaving a thin ring of bright light around the sun just as it dipped under the horizon.

Restaurants along the coast reported that business Saturday afternoon was booming. Traffic to and from the shore was jammed. Parking at the beaches was at a premium.

“It was just a festive kind of day,” said Frank Busic, the maitre d’ at the Pacifica Del Mar restaurant.

Actually, it was unexpectedly festive. Forecasters had warned last week that it was a split bet the eclipse would be visible through the clouds, since a series of winter storms were lined up to wash the Pacific coast.

In some parts of San Diego County, clouds did obscure the view. But, for the most part, watchers saw a fiery solar eclipse, then a slow drift of colors--yellow, then orange, then red, then purple and, finally, a deep black lit only by the twinkle of a few stars.

“It’s just a fortunate thing that the eclipse was seen,” said Frank O’Leary, forecaster at the National Weather Service in San Diego. At mid-afternoon, about an hour before the eclipse began, much of the western horizon was covered by clouds, he said.

“But as the eclipse approached, those clouds, about 12,000 feet, thinned and dissipated,” guaranteeing a good view, O’Leary said.

A solar eclipse occurs somewhere on earth two to five times a year. During its 28-day orbit of the earth, the moon passes occasionally in front of the sun, producing an eclipse on earth.

Sometimes, the moon covers the entire sun. That’s what happened last July 11 for viewers south of San Diego, in places such as Hawaii and Mexico. Seen from Southern California, however, that eclipse was only partial.

Since eclipses are unusual, it’s even more more rare when an eclipse is linked to a sunset.

The last sunset eclipse visible in Southern California was Jan. 5, 1647, said Sally Buckalew, spokeswoman for the Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater & Science Center in San Diego. The next sunset eclipse visible here, she said, will be about 20,000 years from now.

Visible from Ensenada to Malibu, the center line of this eclipse was in Encinitas. The moon passed in front of the sun but did not cover it completely, because of variations in the two bodies’ orbits, leaving a ring of sunlight around its edge. That ring is called an annulus.

When Saturday dawned bright and sunny, not gray and gloomy, the realization that the eclipse might, indeed, be visible sparked a run on the $3.95 special viewing filters available at the Fleet Center.

At least 100 people were lined up, ready to buy, when the center opened at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, usher Mike Kinnard said. Before the center sold out of all 6,000 filters by mid-afternoon, the line had grown to 500 people--an hour-long wait that generated opportunistic scalping in the nearby parking lot.

Chris Parks, 24, of La Mesa, a hotel doorman, bought a viewer for $8 from a man in a green shirt who absolutely refused to give his name. “I paid double but I cut the line,” Parks said. “A good move.”

The eclipse began at 3:35 p.m., when the moon began to pass in front of the sun’s lower edge. Seemingly every parking spot along U.S. 101 in North County, from Carlsbad to Cardiff, was taken. Near Torrey Pines State Beach north of La Jolla, traffic was backed up for about a mile on Carmel Valley Road.

“Parking in Ocean Beach was very, very crowded,” said Dave Rains, a San Diego city lifeguard. “There was a lot of trouble getting in and out of OB. La Jolla Boulevard, as well. Kind of like the 4th of July.”

Cabrillo National Monument, at Point Loma, drew some 6,000 eclipse enthusiasts, park ranger Barry Joyce said. All 200 parking spots were full, he said. Cars dotted the road leading to the monument, he said.

Even considering how packed the monument was, he said, it got supernaturally quiet as the eclipse progressed.

“Someone is reflecting the image of the eclipse on the lighthouse,” Joyce said. “There are lots of people, but it is very quiet here.”

In Cardiff, several people outside Ranch and Sea Realty stood with their backs to the ocean, holding hands, watching the sun’s reflection in the office’s windows.

Elsewhere, it was far livelier.

“It’s eclipse mania,” said Dennis Jenks, general manager at the Chart House restaurant in Cardiff. “The phone is ringing off the hook and people are coming by, frantically trying to get in.”

Coastal restaurants around the county reported sales were up by anywhere from 25% to 100%. At the Red Onion at Mission Beach, the figure was 30%, general manager Brett Carr said. Sales were brisk of a drink created just for the occasion, the $4.25 Half Moon, a mix of blue curacao, vodka, pineapple juice and soda. “It’s busy,” he said. “Extremely busy.”

The patio at Del Mar Plaza--with three restaurants, a gourmet coffee shop and an ice cream store--drew hundreds of people. While they gazed west, a singing group, The Fabulous Earrings, belted out tunes, among them “Up the Ladder to the Roof.”

As the moon drifted in front of the sun, Olivia Morrow, 7, of Scripps Ranch, said, “It looks pretty neat because the moon looks like a sad mouth. I think it looks very pretty.”

“I see the craters on the moon,” volunteered Alex Jones, 7, also in the second grade.

Competition for terrace seats inside the three plaza restaurants was fierce. “Business is phenomenal today,” said Michael J. Blake, general manager of one of the restaurants, Epazote. “People are fighting for the seats on the terrace.”

Inside nearby Il Fornaio, Pat Deasy-Spinetta and her husband, John Spinetta, occupied a prized table along the plate-glass window. “I was very aggressive,” he said, digging into a plate full of ravioli. “I had to be, since it’s the perfect vantage point.”

The annular phase--when the moon’s entire silhouette can be seen inside the sun’s disk--began at 4:50 p.m. Six minutes later, the sun sank into the Pacific Ocean.

As it did, the crowd at Del Mar Plaza broke into applause. “Oh, wow,” said Dick Brown, 59, of University City. “A 10. It was great.”

“Worth the wait,” said his wife, Sandy Brown, 50.

Members of the Oceanside Telescope Club, who had set up high-powered telescopes near the Oceanside pier, applauded, too.

Club member Fred Westerman of Oceanside said he “went crazy. Just when it hit the horizon you could see the blue and red separation. It was beautiful.”

A few minutes later, around the county, the crowds began to disperse. In Del Mar, a woman who asked to remain unidentified said she was glad the next time was 20,000 years away.

“Maybe now,” she said, “I’ll be able to get a parking place.”

Times staff writers Tom Gorman, Paul Chavez and John M. Glionna contributed to this story.