As I sit here writing the rain patters on the deck above my head. The wind hits the halyards and draws the sea to the side of the boat. I sleep at night, one ear to the sounds of the ocean below, the other listening intently for changes in the drip, drip drip that alerts me to a possible leak in her wooden deck - a small opening between her beams that allows the smallest trickle of water to enter and find its way alongside the ribs and bulkheads to a point of release inside the cabin.

The human ear is connected to the brain by 50,000 nerve fibers. The dolphin's ear has 2.25 times this amount and detects frequencies that are on the average 4.5 times higher than the ones we use. Like the leak in my boat, the trickle of stimulus we receive from our ears is a mere drop in the bucket of what exists outside our perceptual framework.

We can only listen with our own set of ears, see with our own set of eyes. No amount of computer manipulations or hi-tech machinery is going to give us the experience of the depths, distance and dynamics of underwater. We may gather all the scientific details of whale sounds and understand on some levels how they work, but it remains a mystery of how the whales themselves perceive their environment, how they conceive of the waters in which they swim.

How can we relate to an animal who hears through objects? Who can visualize not only the body contours but the internal composition of muscle, bone and flesh by use of sound? How would we begin to speak with a creature who can send out six signals simultaneously - three on each side of its body?

The best place to start is with an understanding of how our own hearing functions and an appreciation of our own acoustic systems.

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