[CholeraJoe]

“Crazy fools, the Irish.”

[Hatteras]

Oh, stop. The basking shark is a large slow moving filter feeder (plankton, krill, etc...) much like a whale shark only a little smaller. Adult lengths generally between 18 and 25 feet or so.

There's a reason they were able to circle it with their boat. A drunk jumping off a boat onto him probably gave the poor thing a freakin' heart attack.