A Shark in the House
By Larry O'Hanlon

Getting face to face with a shark really should happen in tropical waters, like the azure seas off Australia, Sri Lanka or Africa — a place that is clear and warm, so one can be as comfortable as possible in an admittedly awkward situation.

Instead, I'm headed to much cooler climes, where I hope to meet a giant.

The chilly, clouded waters off the coast of the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea is summer home and sanctuary to the basking shark — an animal that stretches up to 45 feet in length. It is the second largest shark and fish in the ocean, with only the whale shark exceeding it in size.

Basking shark mouths get so big they could engulf a Volkswagen.

Every summer, hundreds of these mammoth animals hang out in the sea, warmed by the Gulf Stream current that travels between Ireland and the United Kingdom. It is not the abundant game fish or sunburned bathers they come to feed on, however, but the microscopic plants and animals called plankton.

The giants prefer the oceangoing equivalent of baby food.

Only three decades ago few people on the Isle of Man were aware that such remarkable creatures lived just offshore, says Ken Watterson, an Isle of Man native, huge basking shark fan and founder of the Basking Shark Society.

These days loads of locals and tourists on the island are mad about "baskers." People throng to see the island mascots and buy shark souvenirs. Others are determined to uncover the many mysteries that still surround basking sharks and to conserve their populations.

Watterson has a remarkable relationship with the animals. He has snorkeled with them over 4,000 times and witnessed their feeding, courting and giving birth. He also has taken thousands of people out to see the sharks, much like whale-watching trips in other parts of the world.

"My father was a fisherman and showed me my first shark when I was 5," he says. But it wasn't until the 1970s that Watterson became driven about basking sharks.

At the time, he says, no one paid much attention to the baskers. The sharks that are now island celebrities were in danger of being exterminated by fishermen who cut off their fins to sell to Asian markets, where shark fin soup is considered a delicacy.

The threat continues today, although bans on "finning" are being enforced in many U.S.-controlled waters. The practice is hotly debated in international circles, with proposals for global protection raised unsuccessfully this year at the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

But it's in the seas that sweep around the Isle of Man where I hope to meet my first giant in August, weather and waves permitting. To prepare, I used my tape measure and marked off 45 feet — the biggest size reported for a basker. It turned out to be the length of my house in California.

I imagined swimming beside a fish this long, and suddenly the basker's eating habits seemed awfully sensible to me.

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