shark attack

Jayne has frequently complained that she has never seen dolphins. Last week there was a pod following the ferry across to Tayinloan and I used to see the winter resident pod of about 20 almost every day off the fish farm last January. But no luck for Jayne. On Wednesday we saw something much rarer - the second largest fish in the whole wide world - at least I think it is after the whale shark - and swimming round in circles for almost an hour just off Ardailly. Thought it was a couple of dolphins at first but then the big dorsal fin was evidently attached to the large tail fin following some 5 metres or so behind. The basking shark is a real killer and spells certain death for very large numbers of plankton. The one we saw was only 30m off the rocks at Port an Duin below the plot. We were busy shuttering up the footings for the house. It was probably about 8 metres long.

Later we heard that Don saw 7 or so basking sharks from his RIB off the west of Gigha. They are pretty rare these days - the last one I saw was off the Isle of Man a few years ago and long gone are the days when I saw them every day off Skomer when I worked on the boat there as a lad.

Next time it'll be dolphins I'm sure - or even a minke whale.