The Brickell skyline at 6:47am

From the dock, between 6:43 and 6:49 most mornings, Miami glows in a register the rest of the day never offers. The light is rose-gold; the towers across the bay flatten into silhouette; the water turns a colour for which only the Spanish word plata seems quite right.

We don’t schedule things during those six minutes. The breakfast carts pause; the gardeners hold off the trimmers; the only sound is the rigging of a sailboat moored two slips down. It is the single best argument for waking up early in this city.