Thundering sea with blowhole at Mussel Point, near Zennor

Invigorating and inspirational! — Thundering sea dramatics, complete with blowhole antics, on the rocks at Mussel Point, near Zennor, as a chunky swell comes surging in…

In mid-September 2013 I first explored this wonderfully wild and atmospheric patch between St Ives and Zennor, Penwith, Cornwall, UK, just west of the little low grassy / rocky patch opposite The Carracks ('Seal Island'), which latter is a favourite spot for people to linger, and in late summer / autumn, to listen for the seals moaning there.

Mussel Point to the west, and the intervening weirdly named Economy Cove also get seals, but my main focus there has been the invigorating and inspirational sea dramatics around there when the swell is reasonably chunky. Mussel Point boasts one powerful blowhole and a cave with a powerfully booming cleft in its entrance, and the most hypnotically marvellous sea eruptions as its larger waves have magnificent arguments with the rocks and outcrops in their way.

That first time I came there exploring for recording opportunities, one thing that particularly grabbed me was a restful, comforting and yet also inspiring-feeling continual thundering sound, I think with an emphasis on a frequency range centred around 60–70Hz. This was a generalized sound that was clearly caused by a particular resonance of this grassy slope. I made a lovely recording of that, with a modestly chunky swell, but more recently it was one of the many recordings that I regretfully discarded because of a shortcoming of the Sony PCM-M10 recorder model I was using back then. I was thus ever hankering after getting conditions just right to capture it with the PCM-D100.

Well, on 15 April 2023 I completely unexpectedly captured there a real hyped-up 'on-steroids' version of that soundscape (https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/684588/ ), with the recorder in a very similar position to that of the 2013 recording. You can hear the direct crashing and thundering of individual waves, but there's also this more generalized sort of thundering produced by the local acoustic resonance.

One thing about that recording that disappointed me a little was that the crashing sea sound there was so loud that it obliterated the sound of the powerful blowhole close-by, which latter can normally be heard over the other side of the bay, and indeed from near Zennor Head further away, in favourable conditions.

Hardly surprising, then, that I followed that recording with another, taken a little higher up and more to the west, more overlooking the patch of cliff and rocks where the blowhole was operating. Even there I found the blowhole antics pretty faint against all the general sea pandemonium. — However, when I examined that recording afterwards I was surprised to find that for a good bit of the time the blowhole was clearly audible, albeit not at a really dramatic volume relative to that of the general sea pandemonium.

This, then, is that recording. The blowhole is at bottom left of the soundstage, and its jet rises at a low angle, upwards to right, splashing down on a low-angle inclined rock face as it goes. A heavy boom or thump normally precedes each jet, with a delay of a second or two before the splashing-down is heard. 

Advisory
For the best rendition, high-grade headphones are strongly recommended.
To hear this recording as I heard the original soundscape, and properly experience the dramatics, the playback volume needs to be 9dB above a reasonable normal level. — Yes, this is pretty loud stuff, albeit not at a deafening level!

This recording in progress

 
Making this recording (cropped frame from a video clip). Unusually, I've chosen to adjust my photos this time to give maximum detail in the white on the sea, which means accepting everything else usually being underexposed. Note the fuzziness at bottom left. That is a rather vague ejection from the blowhole, whose jets are at a quite low angle, splashing onto a low-angle-inclined rock face.

This crop from another video frame shows more clearly the fine spray element of the blowhole jet (again, from bottom left).

Techie stuff:
The recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, with two nested custom Windcut furry windshields, placed on a Sirui carbon-fibre tripod with legs fully extended.

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!