At the top of cave rock, a couple of metres in front of the mast, is a hollow in the bedrock shaped perfectly for sitting in. I sat there for a while tonight, watching the sea slowly darken.

I wondered how many others had watched a sunset from that rocky perch, which juts into the South Pacific like a minor iceberg about to break from a basalt glacier. The spot is obviously popular - the arms of my seat had been worn smooth by earlier sitters, one of whom had carved a graffito in Korean near my right elbow.

A blush crept into her pale cheeks
as her borrowed blue cloak
slipped from its brooch;
fell,
laying bare the secrets of night.