Rod has spent more than thirty years sailing the loch, mostly as a commercial captain ferrying tourists back and forth between
Inverness and Urquhart Castle.
No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t resist the one question Rod has probably heard 50 times a day for three straight decades: Have you ever seen the monster?
He immediately set us straight by saying it’s not about the monster. It’s about the mystery. Though he had no trouble admitting that there’s probably something out there, it’s the mystery that everybody
“
truly loves. That’s what captivates them.
Rod says in all his time on the loch, he’s never seen anything on the surface that couldn’t be explained, despite some eyebrow-raising sonar readings.
He’s quick to point out that sonar can pick up things like air in the swim bladder, which reads like a brick wall to radio waves, or gas from rotting logs.
But in all his years sailing Loch Ness, he proudly proclaimed that nobody has ever asked for their money back. And that’s a lot of potential refunds when you consider his cruise company attracts more than 175,000 passengers a year. So whether you believe in the monster or the mystery, it’s a serious business.
I’d prefer to talk about the mystery rather than the monster.