A group of fishermen had an experience of a lifetime on Monday afternoon after spending about three hours playing with an extremely friendly whale shark.

The friends headed west aboard Kevin Winter’s aptly named boat Playmate at about 8am on Monday and when they were just a few miles off Dockyard someone spotted a large white shape approaching the boat just under the surface of the water.

Keilo Govia was on board and described the moment the crew realised they were about to experience a incredibly rare encounter by Bermuda’s standards.

“We were just chumming the water — baiting — when all of a sudden we saw this big white body come out of nowhere everyone was like ‘oh my god!’ It was just beautiful.

“Everybody was so shocked and excited like they saw a ghost. Everybody was trying to take photos on it. It was so close it actually hit the boat — it looked like it was feeding on the fry but it was curious and it kept coming back. My friend’s father jumped in the water.

“It was with us pretty much until we left — maybe three hours — just hanging around the boat.

“It would swim off and come back and one time we saw it come from the bottom straight up, turned and came towards the boat. It came up so close to the boat you could put your hand over and touch it.

“I was glad that I was there to see it. We weren’t scared but we didn’t want it to knock the prop off and us be stuck out there.”

The whale shark was likely a young animal — it was about 20 feet long while fully grown whale sharks can be double that size. Choy Aming has been scouring Bermuda’s waters for marine life for a decade as part of the Bermuda Shark Project which he launched with the late Dr Neil Burnie.

Mr Aming keeps a detailed record of all the sightings around the Island either that he has encountered himself or that have been reported to him by fishermen and other boaters out on the water.

He said: “There is usually one whale shark spotted each year in Bermuda — it is pretty rare. Pictures and stories usually get back to me because I am out there all the time and people let me know. “

He added: “To see them in November is weird though and it is unusual it was so close to shore. I usually see them out at Challenger Banks [about 12 miles off shore] and it is usually early in the summer.

“There are about ten encounters that people have reported and all of them have been in May, June or the beginning of July.”