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. The plan is that when a shark is sighted, the boat will race to it and the researchers will try to attach an electronic tag to its dorsal fin. What it will do is record depth and water temperature, and when the fish surfaces, location, and transmit the data for about a year via satellite to a computer in Paris from which the information can be accessed via the Internet. There are many theories about the basking shark but nobody really knows.