A tourist spotted a "huge" shark swimming around a harbour during high tide."

Olga Bates, 46, was visiting St Ives in Cornwall with family when they saw the large sea beast near boats.

The group spotted the shark at 6:26am on Wednesday (March 23) during high tide.

Experts say it was a basking shark - the second largest type behind the whale shark - that can grow up to 45ft.

Olga from Knighton, Wales, said minutes before they saw a group of seals ''hiding'' from the shark.

She said: "We had been very lucky."

"We woke up so early to watch the sunrise and spotted seals hiding under the bridge and then we saw what they were hiding from - the shark."

"It was amazing to see and it was so close to the beach. I was an amazing surprise for us, we have never seen one that close before."

"We were enjoying the views and the sunshine, we were overwhelmed."

Olga added: "It circled around the harbour a couple of times, we estimate it was around 10ft, it was longer than some of the boats."

"We were down there for around an hour and a half until the water started to do down."

"As soon as the water started to go down we knew it would be gone already. "

''It was amazing to see it so close, I was so lucky and my grandson was very excited."