Caddy: Monster, Whale, or Legend?

A definitive monster of the deep, Caddy has struck a deep and distinct chord with the people of Cadboro Bay, British Columbia, Canada. It’s a chord with a long history. For the skeptics, sightings of the Caddies can be explained away in wholly down to earth fashion: as whales, as sharks, as sea-lions, and as serpent-like oarfish. Not everyone, however, is so sure that the accounts of the legendary beasts can be dismissed quite so easily. Take, for example, the 1933 encounter of two duck-hunters, Cyril Andrews and Norman Georgeson. While there are many reports of strange creatures in the waters of British Columbia, I have chosen to cite this particular report as it's a highly notable one.

Andrews and Georgeson were in the bay’s Gowlland Head when what began as a duck-hunt rapidly changed into something very different, as Andrews noted, when he went public with the story, shortly afterwards: “I succeeded in shooting a golden-eye duck, but as I had only broken its wing, it began swimming to a kelp bed about fifty yards from shore. Seeing I could not get the wounded bird I sent Norman home for a small punt, five feet long. Returning, he was paddling across the bay towards me as I walked over a little rise to see if he was coming. As I looked across the water I heard a disturbance some distance out. From where I was standing I could plainly see the whole body of a sea monster just moving a foot underneath the surface."

Andrews continued: “Thinking I might alarm Norman I did not draw his attention to what I saw, so he came along and picked me up at the point from which we had shot the bird. From there we paddled to the wounded bird in the kelp bed. I was sitting in front of the punt ready to pick the bird up, when about ten feet away from it, out of the sea rose two coils. They reached a height of at least six feet above me, gradually sinking under the water again, when a head appeared. The head was that of a horse, without ears or nostrils, but its eyes were in front of its head, which was flat just like a horse."

He concluded: “I attracted Georgeson’s attention to it and he saw one coil and the head well clear of the water. Then the whole thing, except the head, which remained out of the water, sank. I was still only ten feet away from it, with the duck right beside the thing, when to my horror it gulped the bird down its throat. It then looked at me, its mouth wide open, and I could plainly see its teeth and tongue, which were those of a fish. I would swear to the head being three feet long and two feet wide. When it closed its mouth, all the loose skin folded in neatly at the corners while its breathing came in short, sharp pants, like a dog after a run. At that point a number of seagulls swooped down at the creature, which snapped at them when they came too close. Shortly after this it sank beneath the surface.”

It’s important to note that there were other witnesses, too: Georgeson and Andrews wasted no time in contacting the local Justice of the Peace, G.F. Parkyn, who prepared a detailed affidavit for the pair. In addition, the monster soon returned and was actually seen by an astonished Parkyn himself, along with eleven others. Yet again, it was fiercely and furiously snapping at the local seagulls.