paying a visit to Loch Ness but didn't see Nessie, the monster

Scotland's most famous mystery: the Loch Ness monster
LOCH NESS sits across the enormous geological gash of the Great Glen. It is the largest fresh-water lake in the UK and is 24 miles long. It averages a depth of 450 feet, but plunges down to a depth of over 1,000 feet in places.
It is deep enough to hide very large creatures without most people noticing.

Most people.

This loch, as anyone who knows anything about Scotland, is also the reputed home of the Loch Ness Monster.

The first recorded sighting of "Nessie" – as she is most commonly known – was in 565AD when St Columba summoned and then banished a monster in the loch. For many centuries after this there were sightings of an Each Uisge – or water-horse – a beast that lived in water and drowned unsuspecting mortals.

When a new road was built round the loch in 1933, the number of sightings soared. Nessie’s first outing in print came the same year when Alex Campbell, a bailiff with the local fisheries board, told the Inverness Courier of his encounters with the beast. More sightings followed, and in 1934 the famous "surgeon's photo" was published. Taken by R Kenneth Wilson, a London surgeon, this is perhaps the most recognisable face of Nessie with the trademark long neck and small head. Recently the photo has been judged to be a fake, but it certainly led to increased interest in the subject at the time.

Throughout the late 20th century a number of studies have been set up to investigate whether or not there is anything in the loch. In 1960 students from Oxford and Cambridge universities conducted the first sonar soundings of the loch. Their results? Inconclusive. Two years later the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau covered the loch with cameras, sent down submarines and even swept over the whole area in a hot air balloon. Like every other investigation before and after their findings were inconclusive.

In 1967 a young cinematographer filmed something that he did not recognise in the loch. The investigation bureau asked him to join their team, and Dick Raynor has been looking for the monster ever since.