Swimming with the basking sharks

Damien Enright on the slow giants seen off our coasts

MESSAGES left on my answering machine in West Cork told me friends have been swimming with massive basking sharks off my local shores.

William Helps, a keen naturalist and talented wildlife artist (see www.williamhelps.com) phoned to ask me to join him amongst the sharks in Rosscarbery Bay. I might have done so had I not been here in the mountains of southern Spain, swimming with ants, bugs and a dead shrew in our small swimming pool.