Sea dramatics by Chapel Porth, St Agnes, Cornwall

Invigorating sea dramatics, heard from the exposed and now rather dangerous unofficial clifftop track contouring the steep slope of Mulgram
Hill, which forms the SW headland of Chapel Porth, St Agnes, Cornwall, UK. Tide was quite well in, but going out during final hour of the 2+-hours' session.

Although this is a dramatic and thrilling soundscape, it's also markedly soporific in effect during extended listening, and would be an excellent sleeping aid for some people.

I made this recording on 27 February 2019. Initially only the larger waves were breaking before meeting the cliff base, but gradually more were breaking, progressively further out, so starting to give more the familiar continuous sound of breaking surf — but particularly in the early stages the wave breakings were particularly dramatic,with wave-crests rearing up here and there and collapsing with quite a heavy bang, while often an incoming wave would hit an outward-bound rebound wave to cause a violent eruption of spray, inevitably followed by an impressive splashdown sound.

Advisory
For realistic sound, this needs a playing volume of 3dB above a sensible normal listening level. For the best listening experience, upse high-grade headphones.

View to NNE during this recording, with recorder nearby, to left and behind the camera. The waves were larger than they look in this view.

Earlier photo (18 February 2017), of recording made from exactly the same (exposed!) spot as this one, with much smaller swell.

Techie stuff:
The recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, with three nested custom Windcut furry windshields, placed on a standard-size Zipshot tripod.

Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshields and correction for the D100's weakness in very low bass.

Please remember to give this recording a rating — Thank you!