“Myths and Legends of the British Isles” has been a favourite book since childhood and inspired many expeditions. It was the first I ever heard of the Loch Ness Monster. The five hour roadtrip returning home from the latest armwrestling event with Atom Bomb provided random chat including the possible existence of the Loch Ness Monster. He had some interest and I told him of my 9 mile swim without a boat up the lake in 2003. My theory at the time was that large marine animals are generally curious. A swimmer without a wetsuit traversing the area where the most sightings occur at the right time of day and month would give the best odds for a sighting. Armed with a waterproof camera I entered the lake at 0520 on a misty August morning. It was an adventure. I’ll skip to the bit that reveals I didn’t see anything in my 6 hours of swimming. I heard strange noises of clicking and whining which made me think of whales or dolphins. The best suggestion I have heard to explain this is gases being released by tectonic movements of the Great Glen faultline itself which the loch is part of. I can’t confirm that obviously.
I swam mostly on the edge of the three metre shallows with the dark void to my immediate left. I was about 50 meters from the shore for the most part until encountering a fish farm where I had to swim out a few hundred meters into the middle. Suddenly the adventure didn’t seem such a good idea. Luckily I saw a tourist boat in the distance and smiled – they would’ve be told of the extreme cold and dangers of falling in the loch. The day before a local warned me that 5 people had died from immersion in the past year and three of the bodies had not been found. Survival in the icy waters was limited to a few minutes at best he said. I imagined someone on the boat with binoculars scoriung the water for surface movements. For that moment at least I figured I was the Loch Ness Monster.
My friend Fred Barnfield found the whole adventure very amusing. He intimated to me that during national service in the early 1950’s he was stationed in the area. A regular diversion he and his friends had was to place a straw bale under a tarpaulin attached to a rope and wait for a tourist bus to approach. By the time passengers disembarked to the waters edge from the next available place to stop, the bale and tarpaulin had been hidden. It was customary for one of the soldiers to chance upon the group and ask what the excitement was about. Tales of beasts with flippers, multiple humps and long necks were told. Fred noted imagination overtook the reality. Only a few people on the bus could have possibly seen the shape. The rest were hopeful believers.
The “Encyclopedia of Loch Ness Monster sightings” shows 1950 and 1951 were busy years. I was reminded of this the other day when a random algorithm took me to a website hosted by monster enthusiasts. A drawing of three straw bales (not one) under tarpaulins attached to ropes was featured and a corresponding monster photograph from 1951 showing three humps in Loch Ness accompanied the hoax description.
Fred would have shrugged and smiled. Evidence of one hoax doesn’t disprove the possibility of something unusual living in the lake but it does remind us to be discerning.
See you down the road.
