Swimming with Basking Sharks | Documentary

To start my journey I had to make my way to Oban, a small coastal town on the outskirts of Scotland. But by the time we got there the weather had taken a turn for the worst and this was a problem because in order to get to where the basking sharks were we had to take a ferry and the ferry that we would be taking tomorrow, the day of the basking sharks, had been cancelled today. So we were all hoping that the weather would clear up by tomorrow or else we wouldn't even be able to The waves are super high even in the pier. Well anyway, fingers crossed, tomorrow they don't cancel and it's not as rainy or windy hopefully. So with nothing better to do we just spent the rest of the day in Oban and hoped for better weather tomorrow. And while I was running here I was thinking I should turn back, I should turn back. Even if I make it to the ferry do I want to be on the ferry? Five past six in the morning, well I'm knackered. This is the day of the basking sharks. Quickly scoffed some breakfast then got the ferry. Half six, I only got a few hours sleep and then I'm going to be in the North Sea swimming with basking sharks. And luckily the weather had gotten better. So with luck on our side we boarded the ferry and began our journey towards Cole. It would take roughly around three and a half hours to get there. Cruising through a little channel that would protect us from the high seas and eventually lead us to Cole. Here we are on the ferry to Cole. Then we're going to be picked up by Basking Sharks Scotland and then we're going to be taken out on another hour and a half trip. We've got a 75% chance to see basking sharks. If we don't see basking sharks this title of the video would be very different. Hopefully the sun should get out by the time we get over to where the basking sharks should be and this is going to be very interesting. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Some amazing views and you can kind of see over the distance the mountains sort of fade off like a beautiful Bob Ross painting. Jumping in the North Sea. Oh it's gonna be cool. Once we'd arrived in Cole and met the locals we met up with a member of Oceana. I worked with them previously when I'd went to Florida to do shark tagging and diving. This is a charity organization with one goal in mind, to protect the world's oceans. So before we headed out on the boat to find these endangered species I thought I'd take this opportunity to find out more about basking sharks. Oh and also I am completely unprofessional. Super. Yeah that's great isn't it? Yeah that's good. Is there anything that you can, facts or things I should be aware of? So first off, basking sharks are really big. So this is the second largest species of shark in the world. It's relatively unknown I find. Especially in England people are like oh we don't have any sharks. Are we the second biggest one? Yes. No and in UK waters there are about 40 species of sharks but this is the biggest one here. The second biggest species of shark, the second biggest species of fish in the world. I suppose if you put it like that, yeah. It can grow up to 12 meters long. About one and a half times the length of a London double-decker bus. This is a seriously big animal. Even just the mouth can be a meter wide. So they cruise along with their mouth open, straining tiny animals, zooplankton, from the water. Just to stop and think about how an animal can get to be such a huge size when it's eating such tiny tiny food is amazing. They apparently filter about two million liters of water per hour, which is enough water to fill an Olympic swimming pool. And basking sharks, unfortunately like many other shark species, are threatened. So they're considered to be threatened with extinction around the world and in the northeast Atlantic they're listed as endangered. Oh really? And this is for two main reasons. So for centuries they've been fished. They were fished for their livers as the main thing because they have a really big liver that's filled with oil and that oil has been used for lamp fuel, for tanning leather. Another thing that has contributed to the basking sharks being threatened is their biology because they're slow growing, they don't reproduce until they're relatively old. It can take a very very long time for the population to recover. Hearing about all these negative things that have been affecting the basking shark, like how long it takes to get to maturity, taking a long time to jumpstart the population increase, and the general fishing that's been going on, really opened my eyes to an issue I didn't know too much about. But it wasn't all doom and gloom though. One really cool thing about being here, because this is one of the real hot spots in the world, it's one of the few places in the world that you can go to where you're really likely to see basking sharks because they congregate here. This area, the Sea of the Hebrides, has just been proposed by the Scottish government for protection, to create what's called a marine protected area here. Basically the equivalent of like a national park on land. The Scottish government has just proposed it and hopefully by the end of the year we'll see whether or not that's going to happen. But one of the main reasons why they want to protect these waters are because they're so important for the basking shark and also for minke whales. I think I could go around in the UK and ask, do you know what a basking shark is? And I don't think people would know what it is, or even if they did know, know it was in this water. It's something that I think we need to be proudful of it because it's the second biggest shark in the world and yet we have it here. No, no, I mean it's a huge and really impressive animal. It is. And it's here in UK waters and it's been heavily affected by human activities for a few hundred years at least. And you know, hopefully, hopefully we'll see it start to recover. But no, people, people should be aware that it's, that it's out there in the same way that a huge mammal living on land in the UK. Equipped with the knowledge I just learned from Alison Perry, I was even more excited to find these basking sharks. So there was only one thing left to do and that was to get on the boat and go and find them. We set off from a small pier on Cull and made our way down the west coast of the island. Even though we'd came to see basking sharks, there was a few dolphins that popped up. Unfortunately, I don't think I caught those on camera. And a shark bird, which is a species of bird that dives down to catch fish. Whilst on the way, we learned even more about the basking sharks, how they feed and even just the huge scale at which they could grow to. And all the other The plan was to go to a shore down the west coast of the island so that everyone could get used to snorkeling for those that hadn't been before. And for people like myself, who'd only ever done it once before, could get used to it again. We were about to get into freezing cold waters where we needed to wear seven millimetre thick wetsuits, which without, you could die of hypothermia within 10 to 15 minutes. But before that, we were approaching a hotspot for basking sharks. Everyone was keeping a close eye on the water. And then somebody spotted something. It was quite far. But it was definitely staying there. Right in front. Oh, yes. Not just one, but two basking sharks are really close to the boat. Oh, there's one all the way in the distance. All the way. This is the third one. And before we knew it, there were four basking sharks all around the boat. This is when they said if anybody felt confident enough, they could get in now and swim with the basking sharks, as this might be the only time you see them. They were also feeding, which meant that they weren't paying any attention to the boat as basking sharks actually aren't that intelligent. And when they're eating, they're just thinking about eating. So with that, I got ready to get in the water. And this is where it got tricky because the boat had to line up where it thought the basking sharks were going to go. Close enough for us to jump in, swim to it, and for it to sail past us. This took a lot of time and patience. But once it was lined up, we were told to jump in. The water was surprisingly cloudy, filled with all that zoo plankton that the basking sharks were feeding on. And then in the distance, a giant shadow appeared and then vanished. If I was going to get a close-up look at these colossal sharks, we were going to have to do it again. And this time, the shark came a lot closer. But we still weren't satisfied. By the time it took us to get out the water, turn the boat around, and line up another basking shark, there was only one left. And the basking sharks we had seen weren't feeding, which meant they were very aware of their surroundings. If we wanted to see a basking shark one more time, this could be our last chance. And what an amazing experience it was. That basking shark came so close, you could see the barnacles on the back of it. After this, we ended up spending five hours trying to search for more basking sharks, but didn't find any. So we were left to enjoy the delights of Scotland. I had such an amazing time on this trip. A big shout out to Basking Sharks Scotland, FGOL for inviting me, and of course Oceana. Due to their partnership with FGOL, this was made possible. And thank you for watching this video. I hope you found it somewhat entertaining. I've tried my best to edit in a way that sort of reflects something you might see on TV maybe. But if you enjoyed this video, leave a like, and until next time, I'll see you later. Buh-bye!