STILL fancy dipping your toe in the sea?

As Leonard Isaacs showed his visitors the beautiful Sandbanks shore a large fin emerged from the water.

He says the sighting frightened the life out of them and has put him off swimming at Sandbanks. But though the shark may have looked menacing enough it was probably a harmless basking shark which feed on plankton.

He said: "I must admit it scared the life out of me.

"We were standing near the bottom step of the car park outside the Haven Hotel and the shark was only four or five feet away from us.

"The fin was sticking about a foot out the water and it looked to be a pretty big shark.

"I'm assuming it must have been a basking shark but it was starting to get dark so I couldn't see it that clearly.

"We tried to see where it was going but it was zigzagging. It was just cruising along.

"I'm 100 per cent sure it was a shark but can't be sure it was definitely a basking shark.

"I was amazed that it was so close and it was amazingly quiet."

Experts in Dorset predict that as the local waters warm up we can expect to see more basking sharks off our shores.

Jo Wharam, marine project manager at Durlston Country Park, said: "We don't have that many shark sightings here - they're pretty rare.

"Basking sharks come in relatively close in the summer to mate. They are totally harmless.

"This latest sighting fits the description of a basking shark because the fin is so big. Basking sharks are very large -they can grow to up to 10 metres.

"We're expecting to see more unusual creatures such as this as the warmer currents are moving up.

"We've had a few sightings of sunfish off the Dorset coast."

Data released by the Marine Conservation Society highlighted the South West as a hotspot for basking shark sightings.

In 15 years of data 11,675 if the 16,998 sightings were in the South West, although the majority of recent sightings have been in Cornwall.

Sightings can be reported at www.mcsuk.org