A look at Chessie

In the absence of any news today from the cryptozoological world I thought I would take a peek at Chessie.Chessie is the equivalent of Nessie and resides in Chesapeake Bay which is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Virginia and Maryland and its surface and major tributaries cover more than 4,479 square miles In places it is said to be 175 feet deep.

Over the years there have been many alleged sightings of a serpent-like creature with flippers as part of its body.

According to Matt Lake in Weird Maryland, two perch fishermen, Francis Klarrman and Edward J. Ward, in 1943 spotted something in the water near Baltimore.“This thing was about 75 yards away, at right angles from our boat. At first it looked like something floating on the water. It was black and the part of it that was out of the water seemed about 12 feet long. It has a head about as big as a football and shaped somewhat like a horse’s head. It turned its head around several times—almost all the way around.”
One sighting by Aditya Baliga reads as follows:"It came out of the water. It raised its head out of the water. It had fins and it seemed like it had hard scales on its body. It raised so high that its head could even been seen by the person in the crow's nest. It then quickly dove back into the water and turned back and started swimming. The way it turned back you could see its tail was fanned." (The Legendary Sea Monster of the Chesapeake Bay, The Book of Thoth)

In 1982 Robert and Karen Frew supposedly videotaped Chessie near Kent Island. Their video does show a brownish “something” moving side to side like an aquatic snake. Most sighting reports of this sea monster describe it as a long, serpent creature. The reported length of the monster varies from 25 to 40 feet long. It is said to swim using its body as a sine curve moving through the water.

In the early summer of 2003, Wallace Cartwright was headed out to sea to check his lobster traps. The native of Alder Point, Cape Breton County, saw what he thought was a big log in the water. The "log" had a head similar to a sea turtle with a brown, snake-like body. It was approximately eight metres long, brown with smooth skin. The creature submerged and surfaced again two minutes later.Cartwright and his assistant observed the animal for 45 minutes as it surfaced several more times. Mr. Cartwright, who has been a fisherman for 30 years, stated that what he had seen was like nothing he had seen before.

So Chessie a sea serpent or a large eel or a long necked pinniped or something new altogether? Like Nessie it has been seen by many people, some experienced fishermen or native to the area ,so not easily fooled.On April Fool's day -Think is this a hoax ot not?