The Camera in my pocket: 2017

@shiney AMAzing!!! Sooooo clever

 

Lake Champlain, the home of Nessie's cousin Champ. View from Peru, New York looking toward Vermont on the far side of the lake.

 

It looks calm and peaceful Hydrogardener. No sign of Champ though.

 

Over the years, there have been over 300 reported sightings of Champ. Legends of a creature living in Lake Champlain date back to Native American tribes in the region. Both the Iroquois and the Abenaki spoke of such a creature. The Abenaki referred to it as "Tatoskok".

An 1819 report in the Plattsburgh Republican, entitled "Cape Ann Serpent on Lake Champlain", reports a "Capt. Crum" sighting an enormous serpentine monster. Crum estimated the monster to have been about 187-feet long and approximately two hundred yards away from him. Despite the great distance, he claimed to have witnessed it being followed by "two large Sturgeon and a Bill-fish" and was able to see that it had three teeth and eyes the color of peeled onions. He also described the monster as having "a belt of red" around its neck and a white star on its forehead.

I would like to have some of what Captain Crum was drinking when he saw Champ.

We have had a very hot summer and the lake is about four feet lower than normal. Our temperature is still in the 90s this week, but is supposed to cool a little toward the end of the week, which will be a blessing.

 

I was just thinking the same thing reading your post.

Are there any pictures of Champ? There's quite a lot of Nessie.

 

Yes, here are two that I kind of like.

 

They are quite good. I wonder how much analysing they've had?

 

The sightings are rare and cause interest when they occur. A woman named Mansi took the most realistic photo in 1977. I found this regarding the photo:

"Mansi’s account of her family’s 1977 encounter with Champ is the most complete and fully documented of any lake monster sighting in history. With the most famous photo of the Loch Ness monster (the “surgeon’s photo”) revealed in 1993 to be a hoax, the Mansi photo stands alone as the most credible and important photographic evidence for a lake monster in Champlain—or anywhere else. John Kirk, in his book In the Domain of the Lake Monsters, writes that "The monster of Lake Champlain . . . has the distinction of being the only lake monster of whom there is a reasonably clear photograph. It . . . is extremely good evidence of an unidentified lake-dwelling animal” (Kirk 1998, 133). Joe Zarzynski, author of Champ: Beyond the Legend (1984), calls the photo “the best single piece of evidence on Champ.” Another writer says that “By any standard the Mansi photograph remains a genuine mystery and a serious obstacle to any effort to reduce the Champ phenomenon to mundane causes” (Clark 1993, 67).

Despite its notoriety, and inclusion in most books of cryptozoology (“hidden animals”), there has been little skeptical investigation of the monster since the early 1980s. In July 2002, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Mansi photograph, Senior Research Fellow Joe Nickell and I undertook an extensive investigation of this mysterious monster."

I prefer to keep an open mind on the subject.

Link for those interested:

New evidence of mystery creature in Lake Champlain?

 

Interesting reading. I don't think we'll ever know for sure what exists in these deep waters - if anything.

 

Back view of Corfe Castle (remains of).

 

It's a very long time since I've been there @strongylodon.

 

I've never been there but seen lots of photos from past metal detecting rallies round the area, lovely castle.