Summer Sounds at Head Harbour Lightstation





High tide, high summer at the Lightstation,

Two AM, Sitting on the stoop. Warm. Dark-Very dark.

A mosquito whines.

Staring unseeing into the sleek intensely black water - listening – listening.

Listen! Long, haunting, passionate wails from the seal’s seaweed ledges-

Intensity tempered by distance.The Night Life of the Bay.

 Little harbor porpoise slipping up and down the passage in the dark.

Hundreds of them, puff, puff, puff-puff.  Busy all around.  Puff, puff -puff.

Distant sound of a whale blowing.  Listen! A geyser of sound.

I wait, hardly breathing, for more.

The bay sips at my feet. The porpoise puff– puff by. A single seabird sings softly in its sleep..

A rattling, explosive vapor roar- I jump. A whale very near!

I can’t see in this darkness. I can’t see,

Another whale blows, close. A Cacophony. Bouncing off the islands.,

reverberating, diminishing- gone.

Silence.

Small sounds. Puff-puff.

The bay laps, murmurs, sings.The tide sighs, sympathetic.

Seaweed simmers, little carbonated pips.

The slim, high calls of seabirds sleeping on the sea.

The dark sea opens almost at my feet!

Roiling, boiling away from a huge rising shape-

A looming dark shape, more felt and heard than seen, softly exploring

the island’s boundary rocks in the dark.

So close, So very close- A feeling of immensity, immediacy,

A powerful Presence.

Terrified to move, fascinated,

I freeze-- listen-- wait--

The Shape  --rests --pauses---listens---

Moves softly with the water----slides,subsides,

and disappears.

                                                               Joyce Morrell

Turn the volume way up. You can hear the seals and the whales on this video taken in the dark at the lightstation.

On this video you can hear pretty clear porpoise puffs as they go by on their way to and from the deeper Bay of Fundy outside the channel. Also a splash-  maybe a seal sliding into the water or a porpoise jumping.