Tahoe Tessie (cont'd)

Day 2:

            I just turned in for the night after my second day of searching for Tahoe Tessie at Lake Tahoe. Although it’s very late in the night, I’m sitting in the boat writing down the events of the day. Luckily, the boat has a small cabin with plenty of lights, or else it would be impossible to be doing this right now.

            I began my day by sailing deeper into the lake. I kept one camera on the boat with me in case I saw something above the surface. My other camera is made to go underwater, so I fastened it to a pole before I left for California. The pole was bent in half so it made a triangle. I put the camera near the point. This morning I fastened the other two ends of the pole to the side of the boat. I have it set up where I can stream what the camera sees to a monitor I have with me on the boat. It took me a long time to set it up, but eventually I got it working. The footage it sends me is dark and pixelated, but it does its job.

 I read that most people claimed to see Tessie near Cave Rock, which is a little mountain on the shore with a tunnel going through it. So that’s where I went. It’s good it was cool and cloudy today, or else there would have been too many other people around, which would reduce the likelihood of me finding anything. At first I stayed about 150 yards away from the shore. I watched the monitor closely, taking my eyes off of it only to steer the boat. Every once in a while I would move the boat so I could get a different camera angle. Gradually, I sailed closer to the rocks.

My boat was about 80 yards from the shore when I looked up from the monitor. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move across the screen. I tossed some bait into the water, hoping that it might come back. The waves began to pick up. I leaned over the side of the boat to see if there was anything in the water, but it had begun to rain. The raindrops hitting the water created ripples which made it difficult to see clearly. Then I saw something. It looked like a shadow passing underneath my boat. Unfortunately, it left just as quickly as it came. By then it was getting late, so I sailed back and docked my boat.

Later I looked over the footage and saw that what I saw the first time was a school of fish. However, the second thing I saw, the shadow, did not get caught on tape. It didn’t look like a school of fish. A school of fish looks loose and there are many different things moving. What I saw appeared to be a solid mass. It was long, but certainly not 80 feet. I’ll check it out again in the morning.