This astonishing colour is always present to some degree but the height of the tides and the quality of the light makes a fantastic difference to the intensity of colour on display. Above we have a truly formidable dark grey sky which is killing most of the reflected light that would otherwise be present meantime a squirt of sunlight has escaped the clouds and blasted a splinter of light on the sandy beach, couple this with a little height and judicious use of a polariser to cut reflected glare still further and you see that colour with epic levels of luminosity and hue.