Life's a beach. And just like a beach, we occasionally get stuck in the sand. When that time comes you may want to refer to this book. Alternatively, please feel free to use it as a shovel.
This is a photograph of Loch Ness I took about a week ago. It is a large, deep piece of water that cuts through Scotland along the Great Glen, a fault-line that is the result of two tectonic plates messily coming together. It is also the fabled home of the Loch Ness Monster; fabled because the darned thing has foiled all attempts to prove its existence. It appears surprising frequently (no less than 6 times so far in 2021) and has lately taken to cavorting on webcam but always frustratingly too far away to tell just exactly what it is.
One can certainly say it appears large, that it swims and that it may not be alone. Eoin O'Fagan caught two objects on webcam splashing around about 100 feet from one another on the 19th January, according to the official Nessie sightings website www.lochnesssightings.com. With such a plethora of monster activity going on, I thought I would take my chances with the same webcam and have spent this morning carefully watching the feed. It wasn't very long before I though I could see a blob in the water, however the blob didn't change position every time the frame changed and after a few minutes I realised that this was because I was watching a splodge of coffee adhering to my screen. Other than that, there was just a solitary sheep that wandered into view every few minutes, yet it was hard to tear myself away from the webcam, expecting that at any minute a dark form would rise from the depths. Weirdly, at precisely 9.01 and 35 seconds, something did. It appeared large, as compared to the trees in the foreground, was almost black in colour. In the next frame it was gone. I sat back, astounded. Had I just witnessed a mythical creature arise from Loch Ness, or was it an insect on the screen? Other smaller blobs also appeared, submerging and then appearing a couple of minutes later - probably diving birds, almost certainly...
What is it about lake monsters that hold such fascination for us? We are after all surrounded by large and mysterious creatures that we know little about, like blue whales, yet few people go to the lengths that hunters of lake monsters do in their quest to capture one on film. It is a life-time obsession for some, and after having spent just a short while perusing the webcam and recent sightings, I can see why.
A short while later, a person appeared in the field in the foreground, pottering about and feeding some sheep and weirdly, whilst the person was in view, all activity on the water ceased. Not a single blob appeared anywhere. After they had gone, all that could be seen for a while were the shadows of clouds on the loch. Annoyingly, the feed would sometimes remain static for minutes at a time; minutes in which a whole troop of Nessies could have hypothetically risen to the surface and danced the funky-chicken in front of the camera, thereby at a stroke proving their existence and surprising ability to muck about in front of a lens.
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A screenshot of the loch Ness webcam
Over an hour later, I was still glued to the screen, feverishly scanning the surface for the re-appearance of whatever it was had appeared. Alas, the object did not oblige, yet I am now left with a renewed interest in the whole phenomenon. I keep returning to the webcam in the hope that I can capture an image. I also fear that this could be the start of an obsession that will consume my life. I could imagine me some 20 years hence, bearded and slightly insane, hunched in a bedraggled camper van by the shores of loch Ness after having sold all my worldly possessions in pursuit of this objective and living off kindly tourists who feed me the occasional bagel in return for reciting my one and only sighting of the beast.
Nessie may or may not be real, but in influence, it truly is a monster.
