When the Ocean Softens

Dawn came to Lord Howe Island in colour: rose and violet above the headland, gold along the horizon, and beneath it all the sea moving among the rocks.
The island had made us wait for it. It lies far out in the Tasman, reached by small planes that fly only when its weather allows, and on our day of departure it did not allow. We sat at Sydney Airport until the flight was cancelled. We flew out the next day. The delay only sharpened the anticipation. Once there, we rode bicycles everywhere, as the island prefers, and I felt about ten years old again.
On this morning, with Jarrod Castaing's workshop, we rose long before the sun and cycled through the dark along the edge of the island's small runway. Where the runway ends, Blinky Beach begins. We left the bikes, crossed the dunes, and set up at the far end of the sand to wait, the sound of the waves our only company. No one else in the world seemed awake.
Then the light began. The headland came first, a dark shape against the warming sky, then the long curve of the beach, then colour everywhere. It felt like watching the island being made.
Everything in this image was waited for: the extra day for the crossing, the dark hours on the sand. The reward was a few minutes in which the glow of the sky settled over the water and the whole scene turned gentle. I felt the same change in myself.
The shoreline leads out to the headland, the sea blurred to silk beneath a burning sky. When the ocean softened, so did I.