propeller noise from cruise ship

[sam1]

Yesterday, my buddy and I were doing a shore dive in Bonaire (Something Special). A few minutes into the dive we heard a LOUD high-pitched sound that lasted, say, 15 minutes. Quite annoying! There was a cruise ship in port (I estimate 1 mile away) and I assumed that's what it was. Once the noise went away, the noise of my bubbles seemed peacefully quiet! Upon surfacing, the cruise ship was gone so I'm pretty sure that's what we heard. The ship was small by cruise ship standards (1,400 passengers). Today one more than twice that size is in port. I'm glad we missed that one!

 

[mike_s]

you should try diving in inlet/pass that is narrow on a set of jetties....

the number of boats going over you makes it sound like a whole landscaping crew with a truck load of weed-eaters being used going by....

 

[Paladin]

LOL Try diving in a river sometime! Towboats pushing barges, speedboats, jet skis, you name it. THUMP THUMP THUMP!! (towboat) SCREEEEEE!!!!!!! (speedboat) ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ (jet ski); constantly. Sometimes it can get really nerve wracking as you hug the bottom and can't tell where all that traffic is on the surface. With the depth at only 22 feet and some of those towboats having a draft of 15 feet, it pays to hug the bottom and stay over close to the riverbank.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

One of our most popular dive sites ... a dive park, in fact ... is situated right next to a ferry terminal. And one of the most popular attractions ... an old sunken drydock ... sits within a couple hundred feet of where the ferry pulls in. Technically you're not supposed to go there, because it's so close to the ferry ... but people do anyway.

First few times I dived there, when the ferry came in I found myself instinctively looking up to see if it was passing above me (fortunately not ... the thing's in about 30 feet of water).

(Part II)

Up in British Columbia ... along the road from Vancouver to Whistler ... there's a wall we call "Thunder Wall". It's accessible by boat from their popular dive park ... Porteau Cove. About 30 feet above the wall ... cut into the cliff side ... runs a set of railroad tracks. When you're diving, the first clue you have that a train is coming is that your rib cage starts to vibrate. Then you notice stuff ... starfish, crabs, small rocks, etc ... tumbling down the wall. That's when you know it's time to back a bit away from the wall and enjoy the show. When the train passes above you, you find out where the name came from ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[fppf]

It may or may not have been the cruise ship.
It was most likely a ship that used electric drives and maybe azipods.

We dove the St Lawrence and large lake freighters (very large) passed just about right over us. They sound like low pitch thumping sounds.

 

[Guy Alcala]

It may or may not have been the cruise ship.
It was most likely a ship that used electric drives and maybe azipods.

We dove the St Lawrence and large lake freighters (very large) passed just about right over us. They sound like low pitch thumping sounds.

Yeah, I'd suspect gas turbine electric and azipods if it was a high-pitched whine, and actually from the cruise ship. I know when we had a cruise ship anchored off Monterey last time, you could hear/feel the lowish-frequency thumping from the diesel gensets for its hotel load as if they were right on top of you (and we were probably 1/3rd of a mile away). Being largely deaf at high-frequencies, at least I don't have to worry about big-diesel powered ships running me down unawares if I have to surface in a shipping channel. It's the sailboats that terrify me.

Guy

 

[sam1]

It may or may not have been the cruise ship.
It was most likely a ship that used electric drives and maybe azipods.

Interesting! I had never heard of azipods, but looked it up on the net---azimuth thrusters that ships use to maneuver. (There's a list of cruise ships that have them and I did not find the ship in question but I assume that it was not an exhaustive list.) This makes sense because I recall the sound stopping abruptly rather than fading away.

 

[Boat Chick]

Yesterday, my buddy and I were doing a shore dive in Bonaire (Something Special). A few minutes into the dive we heard a LOUD high-pitched sound that lasted, say, 15 minutes. Quite annoying! There was a cruise ship in port (I estimate 1 mile away) and I assumed that's what it was. Once the noise went away, the noise of my bubbles seemed peacefully quiet! Upon surfacing, the cruise ship was gone so I'm pretty sure that's what we heard. The ship was small by cruise ship standards (1,400 passengers). Today one more than twice that size is in port. I'm glad we missed that one!

I can pretty much guarantee it was the ship leaving if it was gone when you surfaced. We had the same experience diving Windsock in the afternoon one year. We were at 60f and it sounded like it was going to run right over us. Very unnerving. We worked our way up the reef to shallower water and hugged the reef so to speak (no, we did not "literally" hug it or touch it an any way). We had to plug our ears at one point it was so loud. My concern is for the marine life. For some creatures, some loud noises or vibrations disturb their sense of direction. When we surfaced, the ship was far off the tip of Klein.

The jackhammers at the Belmar dock are sorta weird to hear all of the sudden as well, but not like the thump thump thump of a cruise ship!

 

[fppf]

Try going through the Welland Canal with a 40 foot racing sail boat having lake freighters passing you 20 feet off your beam.

 

[Sas]

There used to be a dredge (the one below) working in Port Phillip Bay where I do a lot of my diving (a very controversial project).


http://www.portofmelbourne.com/imagegallery/images/Dredge-Queen-of-the-Netherlands.jpg

There was a 200m exclusion zone around the dredge ship but on one boat trip the site we were diving was right on the 200m mark. I felt physically ill at the end of the dive from the continuous thumping sound I heard under the water. I wonder what impact it had on marine life... A few other times I was diving when it was working, and it was still pretty loud and annoying but not like that time when we were 200m away! Just awful sensation.