Abyssal Plain

While James was climbing a hill near Fort Augustus I took the opportunity to go on a boat trip on Loch Ness. I do love a boat trip and the beautiful scenery of the loch did not disappoint. The weather was dry and warm (unlike later on when we were treated to torrential rain!) so we had amazing views. The boat trip was only an hour long so we didn't get very far down the loch but we saw wild goats grazing on a very steep hillside. As we headed back to the canal one of the crew gave us a really interesting talk about the loch and how deep it is, formed by glaciers that gouged out a trench as deep as the mountains around it are high. He showed us this using a sonic display that showed us that the loch is very deep; the mountains continue more or less straight down below the water. Where we were sailing the water was about 600 feet / 183 metres deep. He explained that Loch Ness used to be an inland sea and that fish like the Arctic char have lived there since the last ice age. We could see the dots on the sonar that show it is teeming with many other fish such as giant trout, sturgeon and pike. His point was that there could be all sorts of other creatures lurking deep down on the abyssal plain .... perhaps including Nessie!