Like in other games (WOW, elder scrolls,...), you can see the world with water layer (dark) if you're just in the limit.
I don't know if its fast to fix but its a old old bug, it was already in alpha version.
Mods and Mojang seem to not have any interest of it 😞
(The pic is SMP, but it works in SSP, survival and creative)
Duplicate of MC-1499