You know the old saying, “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression?” With that in mind, let’s unpack your opening sentence. It’s a good example of some habits I’ve seen in your writing that you should at least be aware of.

First, and foremost, you need a period after morning. That’s a killer sentence just as it is and it’s a particularly strong opening. Even if what followed needed no further work, I’d still question why you’d want to clutter such an elegant opening with needless extra baggage.

But the real problem comes with the next element. You’re doing something that a lot of writers do, published or otherwise. I do it, even though I try to edit myself as I write. It seems to be a natural formulation as ideas come bubbling up from the depths. I’m talking about -ing verbs, which are a form of participle, in this case, casting.

If you want something to happen, it takes a verb. The trouble with your usage is the participle, which cannot be a verb without a helper. Otherwise it’s a modifier. They can lull you into a sense that things are happening, but it’s just the idea of action. Sometimes they are appropriate—the final two examples in this sentence, for example. But to be an appropriate modifier, it needs to inhabit the same linguistic space as the thing being modified. In this case that’s a hard sell, particulary when light wants very much to be the subject of its own sentence, one with cast as its verb. The reason I say your final two participle phrases are appropriate modifiers is that they clearly exist in the same space as cast. Rule of thumb: if an -ing verb really wants to convey activity in time or space, let it. Make it a real verb and craft a sentence around it. Suffice it to say that I found enough examples of this to make it worth mentioning. Sentences that rely on participial phrases have a particular cadence to them, apart from whatever content is being conveyed. Used too much, even when appropriate, they can begin to sound repetitious.

But we’re not done with this sentence. The way you’ve structured it is what I call a big tent sentence: Come on in! There’s room for everyone. Once you start lashing together dependent clause after dependent clause, the reader ends up having to work harder just to make sure they’ve got all the elements straight. You’re too good a writer not to be able to juggle all the elements and keep them in the air, but truth is, a judicious revision might even turn up a simpler third sentence from the one you now have. There are several instances where a more Hemingwayesque approach to brevity and minimalism might serve you better.

You’ve made some interesting stylistic choices which I don’t have a problem with, although I’ll point out that some readers might feel differently. An obvious one would be your tendency to alert us that a situation or condition exists while giving minimal information about it. Your main character's occupation, for example. Likewise, the process he took to get from a young man setting off for college to owning a forty-eight foot yacht. If this was a movie, you'd have given the audience a quick jump cut, rather than the appropriate fade out/fade in signifying time passing. But it's not a movie and prose allows for liberties that cinema, with its real-world authenticity, is incapable of.

A little more insight into the character of Sleater might also have been welcome. But, like I said, you tell us he's good at what he does while giving no hint what that might be. In general, there is a discomfiting lack of detail throughout, as though a pencil sketch yet to be embellished with color. Bu these are stylistic choices, and you've certainly earned the right to your choices, unconventional though they may be.

Your jarring time jumps ultimately come full circle and the opening sequence finds completion in the ending. Here, however, I do have a problem. I have a rule that I follow, with my own writing, it is to be hoped, but definitely with pieces that I review: Thou shalt not pull rabbits out of your hat. Rabbits are any variety of plot resolution for which no foundation has been laid. In the universe you've fashioned, there has been no suggestion of anything other-worldly, extra-dimensional, paranormal, or supernatural. This has been a world relentlessly anchored in the material world. Although the boat guide has been mysterious, he comes across as just a strange guy with a weird fashion sense. The only hint that something might be amiss is when his daughter reads from the brochure. But that's just another example of informing the reader that a situation exists without giving any context or detail. We're certainly not ready for The Twilight Zone.

And this brings us to the biggest problem with this particular rabbit. There has been no real story gathered about your main character, certainly no goal or quest for which your conclusion could be seen as a resolution. Given that there has been no arc for him as he faced decisions and took actions, his gaze into the abyss is presented as just one more thing. Gotta give this guy a story, something that will keep the reader wondering "What's gonna happen next?" An arc that will give meaning to the ending, and, by extension, to his life.