This week: Sounds

Do you hear what I hear?

When people talk about their travels, they tend to do so in one way: Visually. And that’s perfectly acceptable in such a beautiful world. However, I’d like to offer another way: Audibly. Some of my most memorable travel experiences have been through the ear canals.

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I was enjoying the view while walking on a trail above White Bay on Jost van Dyke, British Virgin Islands. The trail separated the more family-friendly beach of the Sandcastle Hotel and the Soggy Dollar Bar from the more clothing optional beach of Ivan’s Campgrounds and Stress-free bar. The view was stunning…water every color of blue from teal to sapphire, shiny white boats of all sizes snuggled within a perfect half-moon bay reaching out on both sides. It was while taking in this view that I heard a funny noise: ploop, plop, ploop, plop followed by chink, chank, chink, chank. The sound followed the crash of a wave so it had to be below me. I peered over the edge (I was about a story-and-a-half above the water). I saw only sand so I was perplexed. I watched the next few waves come in and didn’t hear the sound again. Then finally, my ears caught it: ploop, chink, plop, chank. It was off to my right. I moved over a bit and saw the thousands of hand-sized black rocks, polished perfectly round by ions of sea waves. The rocks were only in a small part of the beach that jutted out from the middle of the bay. If I had to guess, I’d say it was less then 10 yards wide. The wet rocks looked like giant beads of onyx. The rocks were quiet, except for the crash of several waves. Then a wave came in from one side of the bay. The water swept across the rocks and suddenly, the rocks sitting on top were in motion, ploop, chink, plop, chank as they rolled down the rocks below them. It was like watching a giant Japanese pachinko machine as the black rocks zig-zagged following the trail of receding water as the wave pulled away. I waited for the sound again as a wave approached straight on and hit the rocks with force. However, no pachinko sound followed. I then realized it was only the waves that came in from an angle that pulled the rocks from the beach into the water, which meant I only heard the sound every few waves. I wished I’d had a recorder to trap the sound. It was oddly soothing and slightly silly and I wanted to hear it over and over again. Such an unusual sound, I wanted to remember it long after I was gone. Turned out I didn’t need a recorder. I can still hear those rocks.
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I knew we were in for something unusual when we received our park map at the entrance to Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado. I unfolded it to find our way to the camp grounds. In the lower left corner, a large white outline of an arrow with the word “wind” in white capital letters. It pointed northeast. On the right side of the map was another white arrow also with the word “wind.” It pointed southwest and was right next to the line marking Medano Pass Primitive Road, the road we would be camping on. That wind must make quite a presence in these mountains if the National Park Service felt the need to put it on the park map. The wind was a nasty physical presence when on the dunes; blowing sand up my nose and pelting me with tiny darts. However, up at the campsite, the wind turned into something else. Our campsite was in a small valley below the road and next to Medano Creek. It provided protection from the wind, but every now and then it was still able to penetrate the towering aspen trees to our campfire and bring up the flames just to remind us of how nasty it could be. The sound of it, however, was nothing like the powerful gusts we felt. Its whoosh ebbed and flowed with a smoothness, like a rocking chair. When you looked up you could see the tops of the aspens swaying back and forth, which made you want to rock with it. The sound was guttural, not overbearing, but we did have to raise our voices when talking. Sometimes the dog would not come when we called her. We didn’t know if she was pretending not to hear us or if she really couldn’t hear us. After the sun set and the stars popped out, the wind was still the dominant sound, one minute behind us, the next minute in front of us, then a gust from the side. We never knew where it was going to come from. I made the comment that it might be hard to sleep with all that racket, but not so. Upon zipping myself up in my warm sleeping bag, I fell peacefully asleep in record time thanks to that soothing whoosh outside the tent. The wind blocked out all the other nocturnal noises that would have kept me awake; leaves, nuts and pine cones falling from trees; critters scavenging around; crickets, flies and mosquitoes; the bubbling of the creek that would have made me have to pee every hour. What a sweet blissful sleep! Too bad it abruptly ended at dawn when I awoke to the sound of……..nothing. Silence. Calm, Quiet. It made me nervous. How did this crazy wind go from full force to nothing? Outside the tent, it was chilly, but the sun was slowly warming the air around me. I heard birds for the first time. It didn’t last long. Within the hour, the wind slowly picked up and by the time we had breakfast, it was back to its whisping ways. Funny, our alarm clock was the when the noise stopped. I didn’t know which sound was more intriguing: the whoosh of the wind or the silence when it stopped.
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Amazing things happened where land and water meet. Off the coast of Belize, Ambergris Caye paralleled the second largest barrier reef in the world. This alone made for an attractive place, where rock met air surrounded by water, full of Technicolor fish and marine animals. This reef protected the island from the harsh Caribbean Sea. From the beaches of Ambergris Caye, the reef was on the horizon, about a ½ mile out, which made it difficult to see. The white caps formed a line that followed the horizon. The reef was the reason the waters surrounding the island were calm, the reason boats traveled easily from Mexico to Costa Rica, the reason small children played in the shallow waters without their parents worrying about them getting swept out to sea, the reason windsurfers from around the world came here to skim the surface of Chetumal Bay. All because of the calm in the lagoon that formed behind the barrier reef. About a mile away from shore, that white stripe protected us from those waves. During the busy day’s activities, I didn’t give the reef much thought, however, as we walked the beach at night, my husband heard a strange sound.

“Can you hear that?” We paused and listened. Was it thunder? No because the sound never stopped or started.

“It sounds like…traffic.” I proposed.

“Wait, that’s the reef!” my husband exclaimed.

If we could hear that sound from 1/2 mile away, just imagine what it sounded like up close. I would find out later that week on a snorkel trip. It’s loud! And violent! The reef was all chaos with wave after wave crashing into it from all directions. Yet, tucked under the western side, fish lived without being disturbed and eels floated above the coral, oblivious to the noise above. Every night before retiring to sleep, we would stand on the beach or out on the pier listening. We could just barely hear it. It was a dull roar, a white noise, a rush of air. I couldn’t put my finger on it. The sound didn’t grow loud or soft. It stayed the same frequency, the same tone, the same decibel and it didn’t stop. It was the sound of eternity.