It was a nice warm day today (unlike all of last week), so I rode down to the beach this afternoon as a break from work. Now, I’d heard the phrase “sea of gold” applied to the ocean before, but this was the first time I’d seen it. The angle of the sun made the vast expanse of the sea look like how you might imagine molten gold^*. It was beautiful. It was also painful to look at because it was so bright. In ten minutes only the distant ocean looked golden, and in fifteen the entire effect was gone.

^* Actual molten gold looks glowy red-orange, like pretty much any other molten metal, because the black-body radiation exceeds the reflected light.