No enhancements were made to these photos.

I love sunsets.  They’re in bad romances and lame, angsty teen novels, unforgettable movies, and great literary master pieces.  Artists and poets have colored miles of canvas and thousands of pages depicting and describing their radiant beauty.  Twilight (ironically the unfortunate name of another angsty teen novel) is an enchanting hour.  It is the time of day when all three of the great celestial entities exist together.  The sun sets, the moon rises and the stars just begin to emerge.

Kona, 2003:

I’m lucky enough to live by the beach.  The bay we live near faces south instead of west, so the sun never sets in front of my house, except for a short time in one season.  All year, I look forward to winter sunsets.  As December rolls around, the sun inches slowly south on the horizon, sinking into the sea right over the Channel Islands.

Watching the sun drift below the horizon is something magical.  Magentas and violets, gentle oranges and golds twist and swirl around each other in and endless tide of brilliant color.  The water reflects the clouds and shatters their image in its turbulent surface, scattering the light and magnifying it by a thousandfold.

As nice as these pictures are, they don’t do a sunset justice.  In fact, this website dims their color and decreases the awesome clarity, the sharp, severe lines.  But even the full quality pictures do not compare.  If you have a free night and a full tank of gas, head down to the beach with a snack and a blanket.  Go, watch the day die in a magnificent show of luminescent color and blazing light.