The search

Where we are looking

Beastymoos is looking for the others, one at a time, in the order the sightings came in. This is the current one. The rest are not named until it is their turn.

A small fishing boat alone on a misty fjord at first light, two figures at the rail looking straight down; beneath the clear water beside the boat, an enormous soft-edged dark shape.
Concept photograph. Would not hold still.
The second day. Something under the boat. The boat was set down.
001 Yeti 002 Bigfoot 003 Nessie 008 Dragon 017 Chupacabra 020 Baku 004 Kraken Searching

004 · Searching

Kraken

The Norwegian fjords

Written down by sailors as a disaster. We have our doubts.

Reports from the fjords describe something very large being very careful with fishing boats. Nobody has lost a boat. Several have been gently returned.

The old accounts call him a disaster. We have read the accounts. Every one of them was written by somebody who had never been held.

The water is cold and very clear, which is how we know how deep it goes, and how little of the bottom we can see.

  1. Dispatch 1We have chartered a boat. The owner has asked to be told, in advance, if we find him. We have said we will try.
    A stone quay at dawn: the chartered boat moored, its owner in oilskins talking to two people loading equipment cases.
    The boat, the owner, and the question.
  2. Dispatch 2Something went under the boat on the second day. The boat rose slightly, was held for a moment, and was set down. The owner has stopped asking.
    The fishing boat on the fjord, its hull lifted a hand's breadth clear of the water, the crew holding the rails and looking down.
    The second day. Nothing tipped.
  3. Dispatch 3A rope went over the side and came back coiled. Neatly. We did not coil it.
    A mooring rope laid in a perfect flat spiral on a wet deck, a crouching figure studying it.
    The rope. We did not coil it.
  4. Dispatch 4We are staying. The coffee is good and the water is patient.
    A field-team member on an upturned crate with a steaming mug, looking out along the flat, misty fjord.
    The coffee is good.

When he is found, the next search is named here, and not before.

From the field

What the team sends back, when the signal allows. Nothing in these held still either.

  1. A lone figure on a high headland with binoculars, looking down the whole misty length of the fjord.
    Looking. It is most of the job.
  2. A small red rowing boat set neatly upright on flat rocks above the tideline, still dripping, two people standing back looking at it.
    One of the returned boats. Nobody has lost one.
  3. Two people in a wheelhouse leaning over an old echo-sounder screen that shows a single vast return beneath the boat.
    The sounder. We have stopped looking at the sounder.

Concept photograph. Would not hold still.

Found so far

Six searches, six files. Each one ended the same way: with the creature holding still for exactly as long as it took, and not a second longer.

  1. 001YetiThe Himalayas · Found
  2. 002BigfootPacific Northwest · Found
  3. 003NessieLoch Ness, Scotland · Found
  4. 008DragonWales · Found
  5. 017ChupacabraMexico · Found
  6. 020BakuJapan · Found
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