{"id":2266,"date":"2024-05-21T04:43:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T18:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/archives\/2266-basking-in-beauty.html"},"modified":"2024-05-21T04:43:00","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T18:13:00","slug":"basking-in-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/archives\/2266-basking-in-beauty.html","title":{"rendered":"Basking in Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- s9ymdb:2933 --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"serendipity_image_center\" width=\"1024\" height=\"580\" src=\"\/serendipity\/uploads\/land_photos\/54-_MG_4238-Enhanced-NR-Edit.jpg\" alt=\"\"><br \/>\n<br \/>\nWe were nearing the end of a fabulous dive just off Bray Head on Valentia Island and were hovering around 5m sandwiched between the surface and the kelp bed below.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nI turned to locate my dive buddy and instead was greeted by a massive grey form coming up from below and swimming directly for me. It is hard to describe and give justice to the experience which followed.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nAt first I thought it was the biggest and strangest looking dolphin that ever existed. I was stupefied until it gracefully dived under me and the expanse of this giant shark was revealed.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nBasking sharks are the second largest shark or fish after the whale shark and typically will reach 8m in length. This one was on the smaller size, perhaps 4-5m, but still possessed incredible presence.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nAfter swimming beneath me, this beautiful creature performed a graceful turn, revealed its ancient profile, then doubled back for a moment before reaching the edge of the kelp and diving back down into the depths.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nThis was my first encounter with these gentle giants and left us both basking in the beauty of the encounter.<br \/>\n<br \/>\n<br \/>\n#scuba #diving #baskingshark #sharks #Cetorhinusmaximus #Kerry #ValentiaIsland #BrayHead #megafauna #ancient #creatures<br \/>\n<br \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We were nearing the end of a fabulous dive just off Bray Head on Valentia Island and were hovering around 5m sandwiched between the surface and the kelp bed below. I turned to locate my dive buddy and instead was greeted by a massive grey form coming up from below and swimming directly for me. &#8230; <a title=\"Basking in Beauty\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/archives\/2266-basking-in-beauty.html\" aria-label=\"Read more about Basking in Beauty\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}