Loch Ness inlets

Factual Questions
1

Note: My personal guess is that many things have been sighted in Loch Ness, none of which are prehistoric monsters. The neatest explanation I saw was how the steep sides of the Loch could produce a visual effect that “repeated” something sticking out of the water, so a seal poking it’s head out looked like an about 10-foot-long neck sticking out of the water.

However, the BBC is claiming that it has proven that there’s no beastie in Loch Ness: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3096839.stm

Looking at the map on that site (and elsewhere), it looks to me like Loch Ness is connected to the ocean… and therefore could just be an occasional home (perhaps the breeding grounds or something) for some undiscovered deep-sea animal.

So, here’s the GQ: How big are these rivers running into/out of Loch Ness? Are they big enough to allow something the size that Nessie is reported to be to travel in and out of Loch Ness?

2

Loch Ness is part of the Great Glen, a fault line that runs across Scotland. British engineers constructed the Caledonian Canalto link the various bodies of water in the Great Glen together. The Canal runs from Fort William to Inverness, so yes, it does link the North and Irish Seas.

However, as you can see from the linked page, the Canal has a large number of locks. The most-common “explanation” for Nessie is a Plesiosaur, which were on the order of 37-42 ft (that would be for an Elasmosaurus, the most famous genus of the pliesiosaurs). I think a lock operator would tend to notice one of those thrashing around in his lock.