Sea dramatics — strongest yet, from tip of Shag Rock Headland, nr Perranporth — 4 of 4

This is the fourth of four recordings from what I regard as a 'pinnacle' session, capturing my most dramatic seascapes yet. It's the second of two recordings made by the upper recorder in that session.

Large waves crashing closely around us as though about to wash us away or swallow us up. The breaking waves are loud and dramatic, with some of the larger ones sounding quite apocalyptic! The relatively peaceful interludes between the groups of crashing larger waves are still seething and writhing, with an almost constant fluctuating deep rumble with the odd thuds included. Sometimes you may notice very distant sound of breaking waves on the right. That is the surf rolling into Perran Bay at Perranporth (Cornwall, UK).

This upper position gives a more 'open' and expansive panorama than the lower recordings could capture, with real 'wow' interactions between incoming waves and energetic rebound waves from the main line of cliff right round to the left. That interaction is the cause of the incoming wave sound usually pulsing — truly, the latter is no fault in the recording! The sense of powerful surging of most of the waves from the right-hand side round to far left is quite breathtaking.

However, this second upper recording differs from the first because, although pointing in the same direction, its position is a little back from the cliff-edge (on the left), which de-emphasizes the wave sound on that side, making it all sound more distant than it really is. Therefore our attention isn't so much on that surging from right to left that was so prominent in the first upper recording. Also, fewer waves are now giving the impression of bearing down on us; rather, we have more sense now of looking down on it all.

To hear this to best effect you need high-grade headphones, and to have the volume setting about 9dB above a sensible normal level for a realistic rendition of symphonic orchestral music.

I seemed to have already got the Shag Rock headland pretty-well covered by a succession of recordings there, but what I still lacked was good recordings of really apocalyptic-sounding larger waves there. The trouble was that waves beyond a certain size would make it seriously risky to downright suicidal to go down there at all — and then the wind would also be too strong for me to record or indeed to hitch-hike out in the first place. And waves just comfortably larger than I'd already recorded still almost always came with too-windy conditions for useful recording with what equipment I had.

Then on 16 December 2019 at last the surf forecast was for an 8ft swell, though reducing to 6ft during the afternoon, with reasonably light SW wind, which could possibly enable me to find sufficient shelter to record on that headland. Unusually I hitch-hiked straight to Perranporth, with no hike to precede any recording session. I had two Sony PCM-D100 recorders with me, and placed one in the same position by the 'breathing' cleft that I used for my 2015 'Eerie vigil with Shag Rock blowhole' recording. I had it pointing roughly west, obliquely along / facing the waves.

The energy of this soundscape was such that even during apparently quiescent periods, in the vicinity of this recorder I could hear and feel a pretty-well constant very deep fluctuating subterranean rumbling with frequent little thuds (this was rather less prominent in the upper recordings).

In this stretch of coastline there's generally no shore, the sea coming right up to the cliff base even at low spring tide. Normally, even with a quite big swell, the waves wouldn't break at all during high tide, but would do so just a little way out at low tide, especially if it were a spring tide, so that then it's the noisy run-out that hits the cliffs. On this occasion only the odd largest wave was breaking initially, which is why wave breaking episodes were only occasional during the first recording from both recorders. The strength of waves varies in cycles, so we'd usually get a group of waves breaking and creating a sonic mayhem before we have another peaceful spell (with writhing and rumbling menaces).

I placed the other recorder on the cliff-edge pointing in about the same direction, but a little bit higher up, so it had a more open sea panorama and got less of the blowhole sounds. I'd intended this recording to run for about three hours for both recorders, but once half-an-hour had elapsed I was getting increasing nagging concerns about that lower recorder, lest it might have been caught by one or more blowhole ejections.

— And it was just as well I did, because I found some little puddles of seawater on the recorder. After a hurried wipe-dry job with handkerchief I hastily moved the recorder back by probably about 10 metres to a very slightly higher spot, which I had to do anyway because the wind had started blowing on the recorder in its original position. That then was the spot for the much longer (2h42') second recording, giving a rather different perspective on the increasingly frequent crashing of breaking waves.

Meanwhile I also had to move the upper recorder just a little to bring it into better shelter from the wind, then to start a new recording.

This, then, as I've intimated, is part of the second recording from the upper position — the first 1h10' of the 2h31' full recording.

An earlier photo, pointing out the approximate position of the recorder (its exact position is hidden from here)

The second recording in progress — upper recorder. The arrow points to the lower recorder in its second position.

Techie stuff:
The recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, with two nested Windcut furry windshields (custom design), and it was placed on a Hama lightweight tripod.

Initial post-recording processing was to apply an EQ curve to compensate for muffling from the furry windshields, while adding a shaped very low bass boost to correct for a weakness in that range in D100 recordings.

Please remember to give this recording a rating!