Noise

The quietist place I have been, other than Mammoth Caves, is a narrow dead end cove in Canada’s North Channel. The only noise that interrupted my mild tinnitus and the clock’s soft tick was the abrupt surfacing of a large loon outside of Carrie Rose’s pilothouse door. It lingered long enough to give me the once over and then disappeared without a ripple only to surface a football field away.

It might be melodramatic to say this but it was a transcendental moment. I cannot say that in Cape May, NJ anything as inspirational has occurred but on this 4th of July weekend noise is plentiful. I think it would be an interesting exercise to try to describe my aural surroundings, so what follows is a somewhat disjointed “vision” of the sounds as they happened.

A small sport fishing boat just coasted by with hardly a sound, while on the pier across the canal (about 50 feet wide) a similar boat is having the sea’s salt power washed off. Back on our dock, two diesels quietly rumbled as a boat backs into its slip. There is an obvious void when they cease running.

Then a much quicker boat riles up the canal’s water. The waves it generates smack against the piers causing the pilings to squeal. Behind it, a spitting outboard heads for the fuel dock, and crunches in and out of reverse as it slows to make its approach. There is laughter and conversation in the background, and from our absent neighbor’s radio, a baseball game from Philly drones on.

In Copenhagen, a famous little boy tinkles into a fountain making a sound similar to the streams of water emanating from the sides of powerboat’s air conditioners, and a small plane struggles to keep its nose into the wind as it drags a long advertising banner overhead.

I would have commented on the wind had I written this yesterday, but today it is calm. With the wind silent, the ospreys were up early in the morning high above our heads peeping as they looked for food. And amongst the trees that line the northern bank of the marina, a few nest-robbing crows were chased by an assortment of smaller birds.

The road noise increased as the sun rose in the sky. When I took my bike ride across the bridge over the Cape May Canal to the marine supply store (where else!) the traffic was dense. A gaggle of Harleys hit all the base notes, each with their sound systems playing incompatible tunes.

On Carrie Rose’s aft deck, Charlotte flips through the pages of the Waterway Guide when suddenly the yelps of little boys and girls penetrate the din at the discovery of crabs in the traps their parents had set earlier in the day. And that brings me back, I start to focus on my other senses, and wonder how the loon is fairing in that cool quiet North Channel cove — a world away.