Rhys Darby: Pervy Nessie's back making waves in loch

During both of my loch visits I ventured out on boats to search for the mighty beast, says Darby. Photo / Thinkstock

Ripples on fabled lake's surface good as smoking gun for faithful.

Grab your binoculars and book your tickets because good ole Nessie's back in the news! Last week there was another sighting, this time backed up by a video and a good photograph ... of a wave.

An amateur photographer (aren't we all?) by the name of David Elder was positioned on the west bank of the loch at Fort Augustus. He was taking photographs of swans when he noticed a ripple in the water.

"Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a black area of water about 15ft long which developed into a kind of bow wave," says Dave.

I'm jealous of Mr Elder's observation, particularly from that location which is a fairly built up area, a tourist zone if you will, thus proving Nessie isn't as shy as we've been led to believe. I've been to Loch Ness but on both visits I opted for more candid, less populated viewpoints in the hope of seeing a ripple.

So what of a ripple? I hear you ask. Aren't freak waves normal? Well, no they're not. Nothing is normal in this world. It's all about the way we perceive. When you're standing there on the shores of the loch, as I have, staring out at the eerie calmness, a sudden ripple can spin your head. To the untrained eye a freak wave may be nothing more than a natural anomaly but for the cryptozoologist it's the ace of spades, the smoking gun.

"Water was definitely going over something solid and making a wave," says Dave.

His eyewitness account is spot on in my books, and I have a lot of books, especially on this subject. During both of my loch visits I ventured out on boats to search for the mighty beast. Last year, I found myself on board a craft called The Nessie Hunter, the captain cranked up the sonar equipment and we scanned the depths of one region for unusual shapes. "There's plenty of eels down there", was the conclusion. "Maybe some of them are massive." - My words there.

A few days later I struck verbal gold when I met a woman who claimed she had seen the mystical creature in the flesh sitting right up on the shore. She was in one of those candid, less populated spots I was telling you about, getting some raunchy photographs taken by her husband.

"There it was," she said. "It had just waddled up to the shallows, as if to observe me in my bikini." Unfortunately her husband was unable to get a clear shot from his position on the bank. By the time he moved, Nessie had slipped away. What struck me about this obser-vation was how matter-of-factly this local lass spoke. "Oh it's real," she said. "We all know it's real."

Final words here from Dave, the latest witness of this possibly pervy giant eel: "The disturbance in the water began moving up the loch sideways. It is something I just can't explain." Hmmmm.