Arisaig Beach (2011)
Arisaig Beach
2011
Soundscape
Field Recording
My field recording 'Arisaig Beach' was shown to the public with my photograph of the pink beach at Misha Rabinovich & Caitlin Foley's event 'Pink Noise Salon' at Flux Factory in New York City in 2014.
RECORDING DIARY
In 2011 I set out on a trip to the Isle of Eigg on the west coast of Scotland to see their anniversary ceilidh. During the summer the ferry to Eigg was running from Fort William via the port town of Mallaig sporadically and only once daily. On this particular day it was too late to catch the ferry and my friends and I decided to stop at a small village called Arisaig, 10 miles away from Mallaig. We were looking for a campsite and surprisingly found a tourist information centre. It was staffed by an elderly lady with long white hair and wizened eyes. She told us we could reach a campsite on foot about 1 hour up the shore. She said it was a beautiful walk and we were excited.
Unfortunately it rained right before we arrived at Arisaig so the land was very wet. The way to up was indeed beautiful but also rocky and damp. It was not easy to walk in the Scottish weather. My best friend still calls that woman at the tourist information centre a 'witch' and he still believes that she tricked us. Anyway we finally reached the campsite with a small white sandy beach and two caravans parked beside it. The water was clean and transparent and had a very light blue hue. This sound recording is from the campsite and I captured the sound of barnacles in the waves at sunset. While I was recording a dog ran across the beach and jumped into the water. I tried to hold my laugh watching the happy dog. The photograph was taken from the beach and I am still curious why the sand is pink. The night was cold even in June and it was hard to sleep. This is the only sound recording from my journey. I'm not a very romantic person but it was too unrealistically beautiful to capture every moment.