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Swanage Pier


Sample rate… check, bit depth… check, record arm… check, stereo linking… check, gain levels on the two hydrophones… check, headphone level… check. With the recorder set-up, I toss the neatly coiled cables over the edge and allow the hydrophones to fall through the water. I listen as the weighted transducers pull the cable taut and, with no noisy bump, know that the seabed here must be more than nine meters below me. I adjust myself and the cables so that they hang securely apart at a distance, adjust levels and settle into listening.


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The intermittent roar of an outboard, the clunking of the pier and lapping of waves against the pier, foreground the static of marine life, which is clearly far from static. I call it static, but I prefer my wife, Sarah’s more accurate description of ‘snap, crackle and pop,’ the hydrophones capturing the varied mix of pistol shrimp and fish clicks that emanate from these coastal spots (see this article which used a monitoring station just around the headland at Durlston Bay). Still being quite early, the background noise of Swanage Bay is less prominent. The warmth of the autumn sun radiating from the pier’s lichen-clad walkways invites me to relax, supine, resting amidst the lapping, low booms and fire-like crackle. With eyes closed and headphones on, the constancy of the soundscape provides reassurance and a muted seclusion from the toings and froings along the pier.


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Then, about sixteen minutes into recording, I notice a faint gurgling, like the last remnants of water disappearing down a plug hole. The sound getting slowly louder and more distinct, until it reaches a point where I hear it close enough for me to be worried about the safety of the hydrophones and my recorder, to which they are securely attached. I roll over on to my front to look into the water, to see two or three sleek, light grey creatures, with darker spots on their back clouded by plumes of bubbles, effervescing like those from a hot spring. Excitedly, I call out to Sarah who was enjoying photographing the weathered wood and lichen. We gazed and wondered what this creature of the deep could be. After, what seemed like only a few seconds, the bubbles disappear and we‘re left searching the internet for clues. Sarah found a news article that talked of a locally famous grey seal, named Ron, who is a regular sight around the bay. Could this have been what we heard and saw?


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Leaving the hydrophones in place for a while after, just in case the creatures might return, I eventually pulled them up and began wandering around, looking for a new site further along the pier. On the way we spoke to two dry-suit clad individuals, about to set out on a dive further out in the channel. They were amused at our ‘seal’ hypothesis and were convinced that what we had heard and seen were divers who use the structure of the pier as a training ground. Noticing myself feeling a bit disappointed, but also a bit embarrassed at our misguided attempt to identify the sea creatures, I smiled and resigned myself to the thought that it was an interesting sound to record nevertheless. But what about the light grey bodies and sleek movement? I suppose, the bubble rings could have played tricks with the light? The divers we spoke to had years of experience, so I reluctantly accept this account as a much more probable interpretation of events.


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It is interesting how unusual, mysterious experiences can be interpreted by those that have them. It is in our human nature to create stories, imaginings, patternings or hypotheses that attempt to make sense of our experience. The magic of hearing a grey seal was, it seems, an alluring illusion and the likely reality rather less captivating. It is easy to see how we would want to believe the magical in favour of the mundane. Yet, that is to dismiss the intrinsic enchantment and enigma of listening, in favour of the novelty, meaning or significance we derive from it after the event. Having a group of divers swim around the hydrophones, oblivious to me listening-in meters above, feels pretty wonderous and I’m still open enough to entertain other possibilities. As with other unusual, mysterious or mystical happenings, the experience does not need to lose its potency and beauty just because it is mundane or explainable. As Thich Nhat Hanh (1967) says:


“The miracle is not to walk on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.”

 

Thanks for listening with me,

 

Rich.


p.s. Later hydrophone recordings, further along the pier, were dominated by the marine engines of dive boats, fishing boats and jet skis heading out of the bay, their broadband roar clearly heard way after their sound disappeared from the air. I was shocked by how far out at sea these vessels could be heard and remembered the ‘Snail and the Whale’ book that we used to read our kids, in which these noises confused the whale so much that it became beached. Sound travels through water so much farther, faster and with more intensity than sounds in the air. So, listening under the surface, it was difficult to determine where engine sounds were coming from, unless they were really close by. The reflections off the sea bed, coast and the water’s surface created a cavernous reverberation. As such, the roar of the engines masked the more intimate and easily locatable sounds, making the experience quite disorientating. I have a new-found empathy for the struggle of the whale (and the snail on his tail!).



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