>> VANCOUVER (Reuter) - A snorting, 20-foot-long >> ``sea monster'' was spotted by two university students >> off the shores of a Pacific coastal beach in Victoria, British >> Columbia, the pair said Friday.
>> Ryan Green, 18, a Simon Fraser University business student, >> described the rocky-faced creature as a twin-humped, >> round-bodied monster that swam across Telegraph Bay near >> suburban Saanich. It was about 49 feet from the rock Green and >> his friend, Damian Grant, were sitting on.
>> Green said he and the 19-year-old general arts student at >> the University of Victoria saw the heavy-breathing creature >> surface twice before it disappeared into the calm waters.
>> ``All of a sudden, this head comes up, like a whale with no >> spray. And then this hump, the size of an inner tube in >> diameter. And then another hump. It's nothing I've ever seen >> before,'' said Green.
>> He stressed that the puzzled pair was sober at the time of >> the sighting.
>> Ed Bousfield, a biology research associate with the Royal >> British Columbia Museum, said the reptile-like creature is >> probably a cadborosaurus, one of the last living dinosaurs.
>> ``I phoned these two chaps and let them do the talking, and >> their observations absolutely tally with the classical profile >> of the cadborosaurus,'' Bousfield said.
>> Bousfield, who is writing a book on the deep-sea, predatory >> cadborosaurus with scientist Paul LeBlond, said about 160 >> recorded sightings of the swift-swimming monster have been >> reported. Due to ``incredibly bad luck'', there are no such >> animals in captivity or museums, and a 1937 photograph is the >> only visible recording of the beast.
>> ``We get half a dozen records of sightings up and down the >> (Pacific) coast every year. All these people say the same thing >> about the animals, so there's got to be something there.''
>> He said the carborosaurus was named in the 1930s after >> sightings in nearby Cadboro Bay.