A suspected shark has been spotted along the north coast on Monday. Abhainn Cruises Boat Tours took to social media to share a picture of the huge creature that they believed to be a basking shark they came across while giving a boat tour.
Their post read: "Guess who we encountered at Carrick-a-rede rope bridge today. Clue - he has his own theme tune.
"We suspect this is a basking shark. Would love any experts to chime in. Unfortunately, this is the best photo as the skipper was busy getting swimmers back onboard".
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Lynn from Abhainn Cruises told Belfast Live that they are now "quite confident" that it was in fact a basking shark spotted by the keen eye of their Skipper Tim Griffin. She shared how excited both the team and passengers on board the tour were to be able to experience this magical moment.
She said: "The shark was spotted yesterday at about 3pm by Skipper Tim Griffin on our Carrickarede Sea Safari while some members of his tour group were finishing a swim in this location. There have been sightings of basking sharks in this location before and they are very passive creatures.
"Although our skipper didn't get great photos, we have zoomed in and are quite confident from its shape that it is a basking shark. There were probably more in the water at the time too.
"Our Skipper is a wildlife safe boat operator accredited by the organisation WiSE so was very aware and careful that the boat and passengers caused no disturbance. He got the swimmers out of the water and caught just two photos before the shark moved away from the area."
Lynn added: "Both skipper and passengers were excited to sight this. We will be reporting the sighting to the relevant website."
Thankfully, basking sharks are vegetarians and as Abhainn Cruises describe, are "gentle giants". They are the second-largest living shark and fish, with adults typically reach 7.9 m in length.
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