The ‘Hunt’ For The Loch Ness Monster: A Grand Scottish Boating Afternoon Scouring The Lake For The Non-Existent Creature

06.08.2023 - 19:47 / forbes.com

All travel is by definition quixotic — the most seasoned globetrotters can be led on wild goose chases, deceived, and/or just plain make huge mistakes all by themselves about what's around that next corner. Trekking up to the Scottish highlands to look for "Nessie," aka, the Loch Ness "monster," allegedly "sighted" — perhaps even several times — a half-century ago in the Highlands' breathtakingly gorgeous 23-mile-long freshwater lake just south of Inverness, is an epic, decades-long wild goose chase.

Counterintuitive as it might seem — what with everybody from Mary Queen of Scots to Robert the Bruce and James II buttressing the history of the place, not to mention Lady Macbeth, who had special visions of her own — suffice it to say that there's more than a dollop of Don Quixote tangled up in the mists of the Highlands.

First the "news," such as it is: On August 5 the Loch Ness Centre announced its spanking-new, unprecedented two-day "search” of the Loch, to take place on August 26-27, by boat, with much-ballyhooed 'drones' and other advanced tech. The public is very much invited. As P.T. Barnum would have put it at the entrance to the tent holding Jo-Jo The Dog-Faced Boy, "Step right up, Ladies and Gentlemen! Right this way!" Of course, the difference would be that in P.T. Barnum's case, Jo-Jo The Dog-Faced Boy was, actually, in the tent.

Put diplomatically, for those travelers who consider going, the new hunt for Nessie is what we might call 'Don Quixote Lite,' with touristic value unimagined by Cervantes or Barnum. The Loch Ness Centre has just completed a thorough and presumably somewhat expensive renovation. As we might expect of all Highland Scots institutions, it's tweedy and cozy and welcoming.

So, after very much not finding the beast on your three-hour cruise with the drones and the sonar, you'll return to the Centre for a round of talks with "Nessie" experts and a soothing glass of sparkling wine, all very jolly. Put even more diplomatically, the value in the day lies in having an engaging midday boat ride, punctuated by some colorful local history involving a mythical creature imagined somewhat like a finned brontosaurus with a smidgen of a Chinese New Year's dragon puppet thrown in — minus the people carrying it on sticks. Or maybe with them, in scuba gear?

There are many worse ways to spend an afternoon in the remote reaches of the Scottish Highlands, such as getting caught out on the moors in one of the blistering westerly storms.

But to make sure you feel like you get the bang for your buck for having made the trek to the Loch, you might want to make sure you hire a car and a dependable local driver to get you back to Inverness for the night, where you can, after downing one — or