Building on Pratt and Haraway's ideas of the contact zone, we examine the soundscape in two maritime boundaries: the Bali Strait and the Strait of Georgia. Both places, imbued with colonial histories, are rich in ecological diversity and signify different degrees of violence perpetuated against those who attempt to cross their geopolitical boundary zones. Using practices taken from sensory, multispecies, sonic and autoethnography, we explore how sound and listening offer a textural analysis of space, a way to sense and experience histories and the possibility of listening as activism.