Children on a rubber ring in the sea were pulled back onto their boat after a huge shark was spotted in the water.
Carmel Richardson, from Crosby, was in a friend's speedboat with her family just beyond the safe-swimming zone at Abersoch’s Main Beach on the Llŷn Peninsula when they spotted the huge shark. The retired M&S manager said the shark, most likely a basking shark was almost the size of their vessel, reports North Wales Live.
At first the 57-year-old and her family thought it was a dolphin, but when they moved in for a closer look realised it was something much bigger. Carmel filmed the moment and said she felt honoured to have seen it and it was a "once-in-a-lifetime experience."
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On the video cries of "oh my God!" and "see the size of that" can be heard. Two children being towed on an inflatable were hurriedly pulled in as the boat sped away.
Carmel said: “We’d only just tootled out on the water past the yellow buoys. The sea was quite quiet – there weren’t many boats on the water – when my friend Sylia Heath saw something and asked what it was.
“I said it was probably a dolphin. As we got closer, my son Stephen, who was on a jet ski, said, 'that’s not a dolphin, that’s a shark'. It’s not something you expect to see near a beach in Wales.
“The fin was much bigger than a dolphin’s and when we got closer we could see the size of its body. Our boat was 18ft long and the shark was only a bit shorter - we think it was about 15ft in length."
Carmel said the children had been in the sea just minutes before the shark made the appearance.
She said: “The kids had been in the water a few moments earlier. By this time they were back on the rubber ring, so we pulled them in and quickly left out of respect for the animal.
“We always try to be respectful while out in the sea as we love the area so much. The next day I told the beach warden about it and he said it was probably a basking shark.”
These are the world’s second-largest sharks. Often they are found in warmer coastal waters around Britain in summer – but rarely do they venture quite so close to beaches.
Slow, solitary swimmers, they usually ignore approaching boats as they browse surface waters to feed on plankton. Adults typically reach 28ft in length, indicating the one seen off Abersoch was probably a juvenile.
Despite their size, they are perfectly harmless. Under the Shark Trust’s code of conduct, swimmers are advised to stay at least four metres from the sharks, and boats at least 100 metres.
Carmel said: “It was a lovely sight and it certainly hasn’t put us off going in the water. We happened to have friends over from the US and it was their first visit to Abersoch. They couldn’t believe it – they'd never seen a shark in America and had had to come all the way to Wales to find one.”
Basking sharks are not uncommon in UK waters but it is rare to see one quite so close to shore.
