Last night I had gone to bed early, as I had not slept well the previous night and was dog tired. I went out like a light, only to be woken by Louise telling me there was a lifeboat alongside. WHAT! Blurry eyed I poked my head up through the hatch, were we drifting, sinking, in a dangerous place? Evening gents said I, anything wrong? To 4 blokes in yellow drysuits and crash helmets. No one replied, just admiring your boat. Oh right O, I’ll go back to bed then, I said, to muttered apologies for the disturbance.

The day broke sunny and calm, but with a forecast of showers later in the day. We had booked tickets to go to Urquhart Castle at 9-30. As we were arriving by dinghy, we were met by one of the castle stewards. As we chatted, we asked about the depths we’d experienced the day before and he said there were no under water undulations and couldn’t explain it.

We spent about 2 hours touring the castle and had a cake and coffee before heading back to the dinghy, where we were met by another steward who asked about our “unexplained anomaly” clearly our story had got about the staff. This chap seemed to know his Nessie stuff and suggested we should go to the Loch Ness exhibition centre to talk to Adrian Shine, (probably the worlds authority on Nessie). This seemed a bit extreme but having come all this way it did seem a good idea to at least visit the Exhibition which we did. A very good and thought provoking place, most of which debunks the idea of a real Nessie, and reveals the deliberate hoaxes, and explains at least some of the misinterpreted photo’s that have appeared over the years. Adrian had gone home, so we didn’t manage to talk to him.

We found out that other boats have had similar experiences and although there is nothing proven it could be an effect caused by the thermocline (a layer in the water that separate warm and cold water) deceiving the depth sounder. We’ll stick with Nessie, it’s more fun.