Mariners’ Museum renames Lake Maury

The Mariners’ Museum Board of Trustees has passed a resolution renaming its venerable, 167-acre Lake Maury. The lake’s name is now Loch Maury.

The resolution is in response to sounds and sightings in The Mariners’ Museum Park consistent with that of sea monsters, such as those featured in the ongoing Mariners’ Museum exhibition Savage Ancient Seas: Dinosaurs of the Deep. Thirteen metal signs have been erected in the 550-acre, privately owned Mariners’ Museum Park, warning the public of the potential for a sea monster encounter.

As a companion to the resolution and sign, the Museum has released a video based on an investigation from the renowned and since-disappeared Sea Monster Hunters International. The “found footage” video can be viewed from The Mariners’ Museum homepage,  MarinersMuseum.org , or via the following YouTube URL: http://youtu.be/WfQSW_pTi_w.

The resolution declaring the name change was passed during the Board of Trustees most recent quarterly meeting, on May 13. It reads, in part:

WHEREAS the presence of sea monsters in Lake Maury has never been proven, it is also true that the presence of sea monsters has never been disproven.

WHEREAS sea monsters have historically been associated with Scottish “lochs,” including Loch Ness, Loch Lochy, Loch Lomond, Loch Morar and Locah Shiell.

THE MARINERS’ MUSEUM BOARD OF TRUSTEES DOES DECLARE on this 13th day of May 2014 that Lake Maury has been renamed “Loch Maury” for the duration of the exhibition Savage Ancient Seas, which closes on Jan. 4, 2015.

“We consider the potential for a sea monster attack in our park to be almost non-existent, probably,” Warren said during a recent press conference, his fingers visibly crossed behind his back. “Then again, you know how those 100-year floods seem to come every five or six years. We prefer to be proactive.”

The lake retains the “Maury” moniker, named in honor of Matthew Fontaine Maury, the “Pathfinder of the Seas.” Maury was a 19th century astronomer, oceanographer, meteorologist, cartographer, author and geologist. “Given his litany of titles, The Mariners’ Museum considers he may or may not have also been a sea monster hunter,” Warren said.

The exhibition Savage Ancient Seas features “sea monsters” on a scale one would expect only Hollywood could conjure.  The exhibition includes “the T-Rex of the ocean,” the 45-foot-long Tylosaurus, a serpentine reptile with two rows of sharp teeth;  the 50-foot-long, 50-ton Megalodon and the fanged, vicious, 12-foot-long Xiphactinus, which swallowed its prey whole, headfirst. In all, the traveling exhibition from Triebold Paleontology includes more than 20 large-scale skeletons and replicas of ancient marine reptiles. For more information, visit MarinersMuseum.org/Dinosaurs.

The Mariners’ Museum, an educational, non-profit institution accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, is home to the USS Monitor Center, and is surrounded by the 550-acre Mariners’ Museum Park, the largest privately maintained park open to the public in North America. The Mariners’ Museum Library, housed at Christopher Newport University, is the largest maritime library in the Western Hemisphere. For more information, visit www.MarinersMuseum.org.