The Highlands, Part Four: Loch Ness

No visit to Scotland would be complete without a visit to the most famous body of water in the world, Loch Ness. Located in the northeast of Scotland, it is one of many lochs that dot the Great Glen, a fault line that stretches from Fort William to Inverness.

Contrary to popular opinion, Loch Ness is not the largest loch in Scotland, nor is it the deepest. At 22 square miles and 740 feet deep, the loch lays claim to second prize in those competitions. However, the combined depth and surface area make Loch Ness Scotland's largest loch by volume; one of the tourist industry's favorite factoids is that Loch Ness contains more fresh water than the whole of England and Wales, combined.

Our trip along Loch Ness began in Inverness where we boarded a ferry that would take us down the Caledonian Canal, which links the east and west coasts of Scotland through a chain of lochs.


Sheep grazing in a pasture that overlooks the canal as we chugged toward Fort William. The weather was glorious, if a bit nippy.


One of the 29 locks (not loch) along the canal. This picture's for my dad, who's an engineer and, thus, the nerdiest man I know. Don't worry, old man, I've got more lock photos for you to look at when I get home; I'm sure you'll tell me all about the science behind them. (In all honesty, I miss my geek father and his long-winded explications of the finer points of concrete construction.)

Only a small fraction of the canal's length is man-made; nearly 70% of the journey is sailed through Loch Douchfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich, and Loch Lochy.


The view as we entered Loch Ness. Though the sun was shining and there was minimal cloud cover, visibility was hampered by the ever-present Scottish haze.

Approaching Urquhart Castle, which sits on the bonny banks of Loch Ness. Urquhart has a long history stretching back to the sixth century when St. Columba, credited with bringing Christianity to Scotland, visited on a mission. Interestingly enough, the first recorded sighting of the Loch Ness monster was in 585, when one of St. Columba's followers was gobbled up by the beast before the missionary's very eyes. Clearly, Highland hospitality was but a fledgling notion at the time.

A quasi-aerial view of the ruins. Again with the blasted haze. Scotland, we've got to talk about this crap. It's ruining my scrapbooking prospects.

Looking over the castle grounds and the loch from the visitor's centre.

I know you're all itching to ask the $64,000 question: Did you see Nessie?

Coming to Loch Ness, I was convinced that the Nessie malarkey was just an ingenious ruse to get superstitious tourists to drop a fat wad of cash on "Nessie cruises" and cheaply made trinkets. After all, an undergraduate degree in both biology and philosophy would lead me to consider any and all accounts of a plesiosaurid creature existing in modern time with a healthy dose of scepticism.

However, after visiting the loch and reviewing my photographs from the trip, something turned in my heart. Two photos, taken but a scant few seconds apart, show something quite peculiar. Take a look and decide for yourselves.

Frame one: Taken from the top of the main tower at Urquhart, which is the site of most Nessie spottings

I'm sure you all can see rippling wakes across the water. Nothing out of the ordinary, as boats traverse the loch very regularly, right? The next photograph, however, shows something else may be responsible for the waves:

Whisky, Tango, Foxtrot?! It's a bloody plesiosaur! For the non-paleontologists and cryptozoologists in the audience, we can tell this creature is a plesiosaur from its long, peg-like teeth, adapted to catching and consuming slippery marine prey.

[Note: In case it wasn't already bleedingly obvious from my MS Paint shenanigans, I have two essays due in a week and I'm avoiding them like the plague. Procrastinators unite...tomorrow!]