Tenby: Huge shark gives sailor surprise on dinghy trip

A sailor was in for a surprise after he spotted what appears to be an enormous shark circling off west Wales.

Alex Brace, from Pembrokeshire, was out for a routine dinghy trip off Tenby when he and his friend noticed a big creature with two fins poking out of the water.

He believes the animal was a basking shark of about 3.6m (12ft). They can grow to more than 10m (33ft).

"I thought, what the hell is that?" the bike mechanic said.

"We were putting the boat onto the trailer and then suddenly, it was there in front of us."

Mr Brace regularly sees porpoises but said the size of this sighting was "rare".

He said: "It was big, the fins were maybe five or six feet apart. It may have been 12ft long or even larger."

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"We've spoken to people - and they've seen the video - and they think it was probably a basking shark.

"They are normally in deeper water, so if it was a basking shark then that was really rare.

"When you look them up online they can grow really enormous."

According to the National Geographic, the basking shark is the world's second largest fish but are completely harmless to humans.

This gentle giant of the sea has previously been known to find itself journeying from north Atlantic waters to the Pembrokeshire coast on occasion.