For a more complex understanding, you need to think about the light paths to the camera (or eye, same thing). Here's a setup of six triangles at various distances. The top view is a side view showing the light paths. It's greatly magnified vertically so you can see what is going on.
No refraction is used here.
![Metabunk 2020-03-04 10-29-29.jpg Metabunk 2020-03-04 10-29-29.jpg](https://www.metabunk.org/attachments/metabunk-2020-03-04-10-29-29-jpg.39720/)
The light blue line is the line of sight to the horizon. Notice that it just clips the last triangle #6, which you can just see peeking over the horizon. You can also see all of the first four triangles, and most of #5
Now let's add refraction by using the temperature curve shown, with the water a few degrees warmer than the air.
![Metabunk 2020-03-04 10-34-18.jpg Metabunk 2020-03-04 10-34-18.jpg](https://www.metabunk.org/attachments/metabunk-2020-03-04-10-34-18-jpg.39721/)
Notice the downwards rays (blue) in the side view - a lot of them get bent upwards after the first two triangles.
This means you can't see the base of #3 and #4, very little of #5, and none of #6
You can play around with this in the simulator, here:
https://metabunk.org/refraction/?~(p~'Andy*2fWalter*20Inferior)_