“Loch Ness Monster” Arrives In Solomons

Letter to the Editor.

I HAD an unusual experience to-day, whilst fishing from my canoe, just off the edge of a reef.

I was alone, and intently watching my bait, when I heard a sound behind me like someone breathing deeply. I looked round quickly and saw what I thought was a huge alligator, but soon realised, to my dismay, that it was a monster of the deep I had never seen before.

It had a head similar to an alligator, but the nose was more square, and it was about 18 inches wide and 36 inches long. Its body, of a dark red colour, was from 20 to 25 feet long, and as round as a coconut tree. It came in great loops out of the water. The monster came in a kind of bounding motion towards me, with open mouth, breathing heavily with each bound.

Thinking, in a case like this, that dis cretion was the better part of valour, I quickly pulled up my anchor, and made for the shallows, and I heaved a sigh of relief when it went “bounding” past me on its way. Soon after passing me, it submerged.

My brother, who had been ashore, joined me a few minutes after the crea

ture disappeared. I told him of what I had seen, and we both went out in our canoes in the direction the beast had taken.

About five minutes later, it came up again, just ahead of us, went through its antics again of bounding, and breathing, then went down. We watched it for some time, and saw it come up several times, finally disappearing in the distance.

It had no legs, and as far as I could see, no fins. Its tail I did not notice. I have seen both a reef eel and a conger eel, but this creature was not like either of these.

The same creature was seen, so the na tives tell me, by two “boys,” while they were crossing in a canoe to a neighbour ing island, about six weeks ago, but they were not close to it. It is new to them, nobody ever having seen one before.

It is the closest I ever was, or wish to be, to the old mariners’ fabulous sea serpent, especially when alone in a one man canoe.

I am, etc.,

Geoff. Gaskell.

Buena Vista, Solomon Islands, 5/8/1935.