Estimates of the basking shark's gestation period vary from six months to three years. Since records began in 1981, and for centuries before that, according to local memory, the sharks would appear in the Kilbrannan Sound between Arran and the Kintyre peninsula in mid May and remain until late September. The work which O'Connell, Thom and their helpers have begun is basic and strangled by lack of funding. Current funding barely covers costs and doesn't pay mortgages. Both scientists have had to put aside other work to make a start on the shark project.
Observation is as far as it has gone so far.
Or it would be if the sharks co-operated. Even so the team has developed its procedures so that further work can go ahead efficiently. Technology can add to the information considerably, but a sighting remains the starting point. Thom and O'Connell drift off the coast with their equipment in a high powered rubber launch sweeping the still waters of the sound. Onshore a string of observers armed with signal flags scan the narrow stretch of sea.