Holidaymaker spots 'shark' off the coast of Bexhill

Stephen Owen, from Cheshire, was staying with his wife in the town recently when he said he saw a fin in the water and took video footage of it.

He said he believes what he saw was a basking shark.

Stephen said: “I took the video footage from Marina Court Avenue in Bexhill. We also watched with binoculars, that's why we thought it was a basking shark.

“We saw the fin and we watched for around half an hour, unsure if was a basking shark or a seal. My wife and I thought it was a shark in the end.”

He said he saw the marine animal in the sea on August 5.

The basking shark is Britain's largest fish. It is about the length of a double-decker bus.

The Natural History Museum said the basking shark exclusively feeds on microscopic animals called zooplankton, which it catches by opening its mouth and allowing water to flow over its enlarged gill slits.

They swim in coastal waters around all of the UK, but are more frequently spotted around Cornwall, western Scotland, the Isle of Man and in the western English Channel.

Basking sharks can be identified by the large, dark, triangular fin moving slowly through the water, the Natural History Museum said.

It is not the first time that members of the public have spotted what they believed to be a basking shark swimming off Bexhill’s coast

In June 2021, Tom Hunt was visiting his parents in Bexhill one evening when he spotted what appeared to be a shark’s fin above the water.

After spotting the fin from his parents’ flat, he went down to the seafront and took a video of what he believed was a basking shark.

Tom said he could see the animal for another half an hour or so as it slowly made its way to Hastings.

In October 2018, a man was swimming near Hastings Pier when he spotted what he believed was a basking shark. On that occasion, Ross Walters got out of the sea and grabbed his camera as he was concerned nobody would believe him.