At three months in, with proper winter finally arriving (as evidenced by the water pipes freezing in the subzero temperatures) let us go on an aural journey of life on Macca, via a rigorous scientific poll* of the resident homo sapiens. Results below:
Most frequent sounds:
- Wind (howling)
- Radio static
- Elephant seals roaring/vocalising/snorting/sneezing/barking
- Wind (gusting)
- Doors opening and closing (*see also least favourite sounds)
- Fire alarm testing
- Wind (barrelling)
- 24 people holding up to 12 animated conversations at once in the mess, backed by music, clinking plates and cutlery, extractor fans, the coffee machine, and the automated coffee grinder that appears to be reliably triggered into action by the sound of people shouting over the aforementioned sounds in order to be heard.
- Squishing sound of giant kelp underfoot on the black rocked beaches
- Radio call: “Copyyyy”
- Laughter
Favourite sounds:
- The smunch** bell
- The coffee machine’s milk frother
- The prehistoric calls of giant petrels wheeling overhead
- The dinner bell
- Water sizzling on the sauna rocks
- Gentoo penguins calling
- The massive Southern Ocean swell crashing onto the west beach and drawing the huge smooth beach pebbles and rocks back into the water
- Blue petrels cooing to each other from their burrows in the tussocks
- Ice crunching underfoot
- King penguin chicks squeaking
- Snow pellets hitting the window
- Radio call: “Orcas!”
- Tinkling and running water in the bubbling brooks high up on the plateau
Least favourite sounds:
- The coffee machine’s milk frother (aka milk squealer)
- Hearing someone else get the door closing technique wrong
- The sound of getting the door closing technique wrong yourself
- From team plumb: The absence of the sound of water trickling over Gadgets Gully (our water supply), or through pipes at all really.
The clear and unanimous winner for best sound on the island is the absence of certain human-made sounds. There are no planes overhead, no hum of distant traffic, no air-conditioning units.
There is the coffee grinder’s inopportune timing, but we can probably get team plumb (adjust?), team sparkles (re-wire?) or team chippie (install leftover acoustic panelling?) onto that.
Pat C.
*data largely collected by shouting intermittent pop quizzes across the table in the noisiest location on station (the mess)
** smunch = smoko / lunch combined into a smorgasboard of 11 am delights
