This is a video of me swimming with a 7m+ Basking shark in our local waters off Shetland.

The night was a genuine case of stars aligning.
I have always wanted to swim with a basking shark and was lucky enough to film my first one earlier this year. As it happened I was in my wetsuit about to launch my boat and go do some free diving around my local coastline. Literally as I was launching the my rib I received a call from a good friend of mine to sat there were three basking sharks to the North of me in a stretch of water between Tangwick and Braewick bays. By sheer chance I had 2 tanks of fuel onboard, I was already in my wetsuit and I have my cameras too. The sea was absolutely falt that night and for about it for 3 seconds the thought crossed my mind to run home, get changed and go find the sharks by land.
Then it dawned on me that I would be quicker by boat because the weather conditions were so perfect. I decided to go for it and made the 22.5nm to the sharks location in just over 32 minutes in my Avon rib. I picked up my friend Mandie and her daughter who had kept tabs on the sharks location and they helped me find them within minutes of getting them onboard.
By the time I had arrived there were 2 sharks visible but one of the remaining 2 had dipped below the surface and only the largest of the 3 remained on the surface for the remainder of the night.
We crept up to around 200m from the shark and I put the boat into neutral. I prepared to launch my drone to get some images of the shark from a distance when I realised it had changed its course and was swimming directly towards us. The shark was obviously attracted to the boat and I decided if ever there was a time to see a basking shark with my own eyes in the water, this was it! I frantically got my fins and mask on while it casually circled the boat several times, often swimming directly underneath us!
I slipped into the water and was stunned by the size of this animal, It was obviously massive from the boat but it felt twice as big once I got into the water with it. He shark was close to twice the size of my 4m boat and comfortably dwarfed me!
Despite its size I felt very comfortable with it, it moved so gracefully in the water I got a real sense it was a gentle giant. The shark was far more interested in my boat than me. I was lucky that night, sea conditions were perfect and despite there being a lot of plankton in the water, visibility was surprisingly good. I didn’t want to disturb the shark, it knew I was there because it looked at me several times as it investigated my boat so after around 10minutes of being in the water with it I decided to leave it in piece and get some images with my drone.
From the boat it was incredible to watch how it navigated its was around he numerous lions mane jellyfish as it fed with its absolutely massive mouth wide open, I still can’t believe how lucky I was that night.