Ebb and flow through seaweed

My first field recording trip to Røst took place in the early spring of 2010. I took the car ferry from Moskenes in Lofoten/Lofuohta to Røst. I arrived on a late Sunday evening, the 28th of March. I was intensely looking forward to my very first recording trip, self-funded by a DJ gig Svolvær, Lofoten/Lofuohta the night before.

I stayed in a small room at the rugged Røst Havfiskecamping together with seasonal workers from Poland. They were flown in to work twelve hours or more a day at the fish landings during the annual Lofot -fisket / Lofot fisheries, which begins in February and ends around easter every year.

Southwards view towards the ferry quay and the bird mountains. You can see Vedøya. My first few days on Røst were spent walking about. The mainland of Røst is completely flat. The recordings were made with the equipment I had rented from NOTAM in Oslo. A battery-hungry Tascam recorder and a pair of wonderful Neumann omnidirectional mics.

Mainland Røst is a cluster of large and small islands, islets, and skerries and along all the shores the tide comes and goes eternally. It had been a heavy winter and snow was still covering the ground and the bird mountains. What you hear on this recording is a close-up of the shoreside below the snow, pointing down into the seaweed where the tide was slowly sipping in and out through the seaweed branches. The gulls vocalizing presume are Herring Gulls, Common Gulls, and Great Blacked Backed Gulls.