On Monday, The Sun reported that two fishermen off the coast of Cornwall caught a 9 ft, 550 lbs porbeagle shark.

Cornwall is, of course, just around the corner from Dover; and according to the website above, the porbeagle shark is generally found in waters around 14 degrees celcius or colder.

In other words, contrary to what I was told and what I've been saying, there ARE sharks in the English Channel. Big sharks.

An example of a porbeagle shark

An example of porbeagle shark teeth

Big sharks with sharp, pointy teeth.

Of course, in 131 years of Channel swimming no one has ever encountered a shark, so odds seem to be pretty good for the swimmers. Still, I'm glad I didn't know that before I swam!