The Scariest Sea Monsters

You can’t have a sea story without sea monsters. Oh, sure, they don’t have to be literal monsters—in the original 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the most dangerous “monster” turns out to be the submarine Nautilus. But the one people remember is the giant squid—a natural creature that sure seems like monster when it’s overwhelming your crew and ship. Monsters are in the eye of the beholder.




When I set out to write Young Captain Nemo, I knew that the story would revolve around a monster very much in the way 20,000 Leagues did. 

The adventure unfolds because a lot of people— including young Gabriel Nemo—want to investigate a mysterious creature (actually a lot of them) that have been spotted in the Pacific Ocean. The creatures are called Lodgers, crustacean-like beings from the bottom of the Pacific that tend to put on old ships and plane husks as armor the way a hermit crab puts on an old shell.

Something was rising from the waves. Gabriel saw the propeller first, looking like a nose as eyes protruded above. Four wings emerged next, two stacked on each side. The creature whipped its wings and rose, plastic beads and water streaming down it as it took to the air. It was a World War I biplane. For a moment Gabriel was stunned, taking in the strange tentacles hanging from the body of the plane and the faded blue barnacled tail, split into sections and pulsating with strange flesh and tendrils, swishing from side to side as it swooped toward them.

The biplane was approaching swiftly, angrily, flapping its wings in a way biplanes were never meant to do.

And that’s not even the scariest one in the book.


So in honor of those newcomers to the mythical world, I wanted to present a list of the Top 5 Scariest Sea Monsters throughout time (excepting the Lodgers in Young Captain Nemo). 


Leviathan - This creature gets referenced everywhere from the Bible to Dark Shadows and everywhere in between. Leviathan was considered so dangerous a sea creature that were he to breed, his progeny would destroy the world—thus God killed the only female Leviathan and preserved her body for a future feast.




The Kraken – If you’ve been a kid in the last forty years, the first thing you’ll think of when you hear The Kraken is the big one in Clash of the Titans—as in “Release the Kraken!” 

It’s really a Norse monster—a giant Octopus. But the Kraken’s appearance in Clash never bothered me in slightest, especially because as seen there he’s more a giant fish-monster.




Jörmungandr – On of the great foes of Thor, the Jormungandr is the world-serpent who wraps itself around the entire world and could crush us all at its whim. Technically Thor didn’t fight such an enormous creature, he just had to lift it in a feat of strength. Lift some of it. One of its feet.




The Scylla – The Scylla is one of two monsters that Greek sailors had to carefully avoid, because they were right across from one another in a narrow channel of water. Scylla was a beautiful being transformed into a monster with multiple heads and eyes. She would seize and eat 6 sailors for every ship that passed by. 




The Charibdis - the counterpart of the Scylla, the Charibdis was an angry, flippered monster that controlled a vicious whirlpool.





If you have your own favorite, please share it. Let me know what I left out!

"Armed with his wits, his friends, and his Nemotech submarine, a twelve-year-old descendant of Jules Verne’s famous antihero is determined to help make the ocean a safer place one adventure at a time in Jason Henderson's Young Captain Nemo, first in a new middle-grade series."