Freesound - Cornish coast - Crackington Haven to Boscastle by Philip

The cliffs of this part of the north Cornish coastline are rugged and cut into various coves, caves and undercuts. The sea along here is the open Atlantic Ocean, so that generally the swell generated by weather systems even really far away comes in and has often quite spectacular arguments with these dratted cliffs that most inconsiderately stand in its way.

Because of this particular sort of shaping and ruggedness of the cliffs, this argument between ocean and cliffs typically has a characteristic sound that I have not encountered in online or commercial sea or surf recordings from any other area. Typically, you hear various whoomphs, thumps and, in places, very low-frequency thuds, in addition to 'normal' sea sound, and, if the swell is reasonably big, one can be treated to the spectacle of great plumes of spray that, in places, are seen to reach more than halfway up even quite high cliffs (say 100 to 150 metres).

Although recording really big seas here would usually not be workable because of the strong wind, which would make too much noise in the microphones, sometimes the wind is relatively calm here, with big swell still coming in, being generated by a deep depression still some way out over the Atlantic - so in time I expect to get a fair number of recordings of the sea's wonderful altercations with the Cornish cliffs.

Boscastle has a particular interest, in that there is a fairly well-known 'blow-hole' through the 'neck' of Penally Point, which latter guards the mouth of Boscastle Harbour. In the right sea and tide conditions that blow-hole can make some quite impressive sounds, which I aim to capture at some point.