Back in December of 2014 I heard from friends that a shark had washed up on the local beach. We don't have proper sharks in our waters and to be honest I wasn't expecting to find an oversized dog fish or maybe at most a basking shark which aren't that uncommon. Instead I found this monster 10 foot Mako shark! I have no idea what it was doing in our waters, it was thousands of miles away from where it should be. It was fresh too it must have died within 24 hours.
I sent my picture into BBC news as I thought it may be of interest. Next thing I know I'm being chased by various media companies wanting to use the picture... I sold it and it appeared in all the national newspapers . I didn't make a lot but it was nice to earn a little for it. Having my photo in the papers was much more exciting than the money though.
Funny thing was I was supposed to be in work at the time I took the picture. I had heard the shark was there and finished early to go see it. Hard to pretend I was still in work at the time when the pictures were plastered over every paper the next morning!!