When I am home I generally am not watching the sunrise, nor the sunset, but when I travel I am always captivated by these transitions. When I am traveling alone, the feeling is amplified, and I find a lot of peace in the moments surrounding it.
From an overlook at the Audrey C. Rust commemorative site along the border of the Portola Redwood park, just off Skyline Drive I watched the last slivers of insolation as they collapsed into the Pacific ocean a dozen miles away. I rushed to get to a good spot and indeed found an outstanding one, with rivers of golden grass between piles of furry conifers stretching out over the miles between us. As soon as I was settled, I sat quietly and soaked in the silence.
At Anjuna Beach, the vantage was considerably less vertical, though my view varied vigorously as I chased the waning light. Up upon the lumpy lava as deftly as my slippery slippers permitted, then perched among the pools produced in the porous rock by the complex currents, I played photographic gopher, navigating the narrow channels, winding my way with westward eye, and pausing patiently to greet a goby. The difference was distinct not just in the diligent documentation of day’s descent, but in the height at which Helios himself hid. You see, or I saw, the sun set slowly and significantly superior to the supposed horizon. It conformed instead into a cone of crimson and faded far before its expected exit.
I don’t know whether this is typical of anything at all or if some unusual confluence of co-factors occurred. More science is needed, in the form of my watching the sun set into the ocean more often.