A FOURTH contender has been accepted into the competition for the Best Nessie Sighting of the Year, which has a £1000 cash prize up for grabs.
Quick-thinking pleasure boat skipper Marcus Atkinson captured a photograph on his mobile phone when an unusual sonar image appeared on his fish finder screen.
Mr Atkinson, of Fort Augustus, said the image, which shows something about 1.5 metres wide and 23 metres below his boat, was taken while in Urquhart Bay, Drumnadrochit.
The "sighting" will now be judged against three previously-reported Nessie encounters in the competition to be decided by Inverness Courier readers in an on-line vote.
It is the first time in several years bookmaker William Hill is presenting the award, following a dearth in encounters with Loch Ness’s most famous resident.
However, 2011 proved to be a bumper year with three "good" sightings reported to the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club, which first launched the annual competition in conjunction with William Hill in the 1990s.
Although Mr Atkinson’s sighting was not registered at the time with the fan club, it was reported to full-time Nessie hunter Steve Feltham who is based at Dores beach.
Mr Atkinson’s encounter happened on 24th August while he was on his boat, Ness Express, waiting to pick some customers up from Urquhart Castle. "The time was around 11.30am-ish," he recalled. "I know this because we only do one trip that includes a stop off at the castle and 11.30am is when I’m bobbing around waiting for them to return."
He was approaching the shallows in Urquhart Bay (depicted in the bottom right-hand side of the image) after being over deeper water (bottom left-hand side).
"I could see loads of fish — the small speckles all over the screen — but as I got closer into the shore, I was surprised to see the long solid echo starting to appear on the screen around 23 metres down," said Mr Atkinson, who quickly grabbed his mobile phone.
"I took the photo as I seemed to go over the end of it and went around again going over my track using the GPS to put me in the same place. The fish were there but the white blob had vanished.
"I have been a skipper for most of my working life and I know that this is a very unusual echo. I don’t know what it was."
Although he acknowledges the photograph of his fish finder screen contains a lot of reflection, Mr Atkinson says it definitely shows something.
The sonar image shows a slice in time of about three minutes below the boat.
Nessie hunter Steve Feltham maintains the image is "the best bit of evidence" there has been for several years and dismisses any notion it could be the rudder of a boat.
"If you look at the chart, it is at a depth of between 20 and 20 metres," Mr Feltham said. "It is massive."
The other three contenders from 2011
May:
Holidaymakers William and Joan Jobes, of Ayrshire, were walking along the Abbey footpath in Fort Augustus when they spotted what appeared to be a head bobbing above the water 200 to 300 yards from the shore.
Mr Jobes managed to take a single picture before the “head” disappeared beneath the surface. However, to his delight a dark, hump-like shape broke the waves and he was able to take more photographs.
Click here to see our coverage at the time.
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June:
Foyers shop and cafe owner Jan Hargreaves and her husband Simon spotted a creature while taking a break from the store.
It had a long neck which they say was too long to be that of a seal and it was black in appearance.
It disappeared underwater for about 30 to 40 seconds and then came back up again. They estimated it was around for four to five minutes but unfortunately did not get a photograph of what they saw.
Click here to see our coverage at the time.
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September:
Jon Rowe, a fish farm worker from Lewiston, photographed a large, dark shape in the water.
Mr Rowe was working at Dores Fish Farm when he took a photograph of a stunning rainbow. The 31-year-old then spotted two unexplained “Nessie-like” humps appearing from below the surface of the water.
