"Falky foo" wrote in message
om...
Whenever my boat's at anchor or in slip at night, I hear weird rapid and
random clicking noises coming from, I think, the bottom of the boat. It's
sort of the sound of pop rocks on your tongue or really loud champagne
bubbles or of pop corn popping in the microwave (but not that loud).

Somebody told me it was barnacles feeding. Is that right? It doesn't
happen when the boat is moving and I don't remember if it happens in the
day.


You have heard the mysterious sound of biological noise. Shrimp or other
creatures on your hull.

The first time I took our Navigator south from MA to Florida, I started
hearing the clicking/popping sound as we got south of Norfolk, VA. The
engine room of the Navigator is fully insulated and I thought at first that
the sound was the insulation adhesive on the inside of the hull popping as
the water temperature was slowly increasing. Initially, I could only hear
it when I went into the engine room to check oils, etc, but by the time we
got to St. Augustine, FL, I could hear it faintly in the main stateroom.

Being my first long distance trip in a new boat, I was obviously getting
very concerned, thinking the hull was cracking or some stupid thing, until
my brother called me from the dock while we were tied up in St. Augustine.
I went over to where he was and he told me to listen to the hulls on some of
the other boats. They were all cracking and popping.

We stopped also in Titusville, FL and were talking to the harbormaster on
duty. He was an old timer and entertained us with all kinds of sea stories,
shuttle launch stories and other interesting tales. I happened to mention
the cracking and popping and he explained it was a biological noise - most
likely shrimp - and that I was only one of hundreds that had asked him about
the noise over the years.

Eisboch