Caribbean Creaking

Sunset at Glover's Reef, Belize.

I stayed at Glover’s Reef for a week last winter, an atoll 30 miles off the coast of Belize in the Caribbean. There was nothing out there but a small mesa of ancient coral, surrounded by 2 kilometers of deep sea, and a few of us kayaking and chilling out on an atoll barely a mile across. No lights from urban areas, not even any airplane flights overhead (that I could remember). It was the furthest linear distance from civilization that I’ve ever been. It was phenomenal.

Nighttime was just as cool as the daytime. Bioluminescent worms zipped through the water at night, and there was no sound but the waves against the reef’s edge.

Well…not quite. We were in heavy tarp tents (seen in the photo above), stretched over galvanized metal pipes, probably decades old. The winds hit us from unbroken western horizon, so the tents constantly groaned and creaked all night long. The metal frame had a “ping-yness” that one doesn’t usually hear in similar wooden creaks and groans.

Here’s a short sample.

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[Zoom H2, 90°-spread front mics]