Basking Sharks off Old Head of Kinsale.

[JonHynes]

I was just out on a regular Old Head tour last night with some of our regular punters and we had just come from Hole Open bay east through the infamous caves to the western side. After a short paddle around the stack we headed south along the head towards the lighthouse and we saw what we thought was the fin of a small sunfish so we paddled on towards it.

On arrival (within 3 metres) we found that it was indeed a very very large Basking Shark! He (she) was spectacular! He quite happily swam around us for a few minutes before submerging. The tale, then took a strange twist, as we looked around to see where he\'d vanished to we saw him washing up on some jagged rocks on the shore in the midst of a breaking wave. He then seemed to resist that and freed himself from the rocks and then swam south along the head until we lost track of him.

I had look around last night when I came back to be sure of my assumption and it was most definitely a Basking Shark and quite an old one by the looks of it.

Cetorhinus Maximus - Latin
An Liamhan Greine - As Gaeilge

You can read more about them on
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/D ... shark.html

Keep an eye out for them folks.
Happy paddling!
Jon
hmy: [img size=280]http://d130820.u28.host.ie/mambo/compon ... mm0016.jpg[/img]

[Jamie]

Thats pretty cool Jon
It might be worth letting the folks at the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group http://www.iwdg.ie/ know about that - I notice that they have reported quite a lot of Basking Shark action lately.
Sounds like a nice way to spend your Wednesday afternoon, any chance you\'d swap jobs for a while?
Jamie

[tee]

sure Jamie, you\'d be well used to the sharks