On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse moved across North America. It passed over Mexico, United States, and Canada, and was, to put it mildly, quite the spectacle. In order to get the full visual, you had to be in certain places. Dylan Graves wasn’t going to miss it, so he made sure he was in the path of totality. And luck be it for Graves that a wave pool just so happened to be smack dab in that darkened path: Waco Surf.
“Everyone you hear of that’s seen one is like, ‘words can’t describe it!'” Graves says. “I’m that person now, so this video is my attempt at trying to assign some words.”
Graves wasn’t alone on the trip. He was with a group of scientists (including Dr. Cliff Kapono), eclipse chasers, and of course a few surfers who just so happened to have a session booked for the eclipse.
It almost didn’t work out though. All that travel, all that planning; it was all almost for naught. Clouds threatened to block the rare view, but luckily, Mother Nature cut them some slack and cleared the way.
A quick aside here, if you’ll permit me. I was in Mexico for the eclipse, standing on the roof of a hotel. An hour earlier, I had said out loud that I wished I had thought to bring a set of eclipse glasses. A few seconds later, I looked down at my feet, and lo and behold, someone had dropped a pair. I asked around to see who they belonged to, but no one came forward. And so, from the rooftop bar, I stood there with my head craned back and mouth agape as the day turned to twilight, a pair of blacked out paper glasses on my face. But back to Dylan.
“It’s like an eyeball. I feel like we’re being stared at by the universe,” he said. “I’m playing the blinking game with the sun and the moon.”
After totality, Graves was a little stunned. “I definitely needed a minute to collect my thoughts,” he said, “and absorb what we’d just experienced. I totally get why everyone fails to describe this experience.”
