Dusk
Updated October 15, 2026.
Dusk is civil twilight ending. The sun is 6 degrees below the horizon. It is the evening twin of dawn. Sunset has already happened. The evening blue hour ends at dusk. After dusk you are into nautical twilight: the horizon may still show, and the stars are coming out, but the beach and the marsh are no longer clearly lit.
People use "dusk" to mean anything from sunset to full dark. The chart uses the narrower meaning so it does not collide with sunset or with last light. If a trip plan says "home by dusk," read it as this line, not as sunset and not as last light. The gap from sunset to dusk is often about 25 to 40 minutes in the middle latitudes. It stretches in summer as you go north.
After the evening bite
A sunset tide can still be fishing when the sun is down. Dusk is the time the light advantage of the evening is ending. Navigation marks, weed lines, and the edge of a flat get harder to see. Last light is later and darker. If the page shows dusk and last light, the time between them is nautical twilight, and the time after last light is night.