Spheres on digital camera

HI,

I joined this forum because I have had a strange experience while taking a ferry from Livorno, Italy to Sardegna. We went onto the deck at 05.45 to watch the dawn and our arrival at the port of Olbia; I decided to take some pics with my digital camera. I took the first pic towards the right front of the ship though I wasnt expecting to see anything as it was quite dark still and I could only just see the landscape. There was one small light to the right and the port lights to the left. When I looked at the photo there was a large glowing sphere almost at the centre of the picture with two smaller ones in the distance. I had also caught part of the ship in the foreground which gave a certain depth to the scene. I decided to take another photo, this time at right angles to the ship with the coast directly in front of me so there was no possibility of strange light reflections as the coast of Sardegna is quite barren. The large sphere was there but higher and less luminous with another smaller in the distance. The third photo was taken looking toward the rear of the ship and the dawn sky; no sphere's were present. My question is....is there anyone who can explain it? Should I be reporting it to anyone and will they think I'm a loon? sadly I had the camera setting on low resolution as i intended to take lots of pics of my holidays, so on seeing the images on the pc the detail is scarce but good enough.

Anyway any comment would be welcome. Thank you for your time.

Mairi