Why I HATE Swimming in Lake Champlain!

I live on the shores of Lake Champlain, America's so-called sixth Great Lake. However, I rarely avail myself of its many "wonders" choosing instead to swim in our pool and turning down ALL invitations to boat or water ski.

It has always been this way for me. I do NOT like lakes or deep water. I can't really articulate why. I don't like the weeds in lakes, in general, and I always fall back to the story of the sturgeons that can grow to lengths of larger than SIX FEET in Champlain. But really its just a sense of...unease...I feel, especially when the water gets deep.

Through all of this, though, "Champ" has never been a real fear. I always secretly hoped that The Loch Ness Monster would turn out to be real, but never gave any credence to our own monster.

Even the below photograph never amounted to much for me. I could "see" something if I tried but...

The story of the above photograph is essentially that a woman named Sandra Mansi from Connecticut was vacationing in St. Albans (north of where I live) in 1977 and spotted the creature and took the above photograph.

Today, while goofing around on the computer, I was on Chive and saw a link to a story on "10 Famous Monster Photographs". I clicked on the link and while EVERY other "monster" was pretty much debunked, there was this nugget about Champ:

"The spot where the photo was taken is reported to be shallow waters (roughly about 14 feet deep) causing many to suggest that the photo is of a floating tree or is simply a hoax. The photo gained some clout though in 2003 when the Fauna Communications Research Institute recorded a sound that was similar to that of an Orca’s call, but had several differences that made it unidentifiable. This has led many to view this famous photo differently and instead of the neck of a plesiosaur-like lake monster, they are now seeing the fin of a large unknown whale-like creature living in the lake."

So instead of being a creature's neck, this photo shows its FIN? And according to the University of Vermont they didn't just pick up just "a sound" but instead made recordings on "three separate occasions, using high tech equipment...(and) the team picked up an echolocation signal on all three occasions".

And there is footage from two fisherman, that aired on ABC, who captured Champ on video in 2005??

Ummmm.....AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!