A four-meter-long shark was sighted off the coast of Quy Nhon City under Binh Dinh Province in south-central Vietnam on Thursday.

Nhat Phong, a local tour guide, said that he and a group of tourists saw the shark at 11:45 am on Thursday during a boat trip to the coral reefs along Bai Dua Beach.

“At first, we just saw its large fin on the water surface. All tourists on the ship were excited and asked the captain to make a U-turn to see the fish," Phong said.

“When we approached [the shark], it looked friendly and began swimming slower."

Phong and his tour group filmed the four-meter shark, appreciating its size and the white spots that covered its body.

“We initially thought it was a whale, not a shark,” he added.

According to Vo Van Quang, an expert at the Nha Trang Oceanography Institute in south-central Khanh Hoa Province, the animal in Phong’s video appears to be a whale shark.

Local residents spotted several sharks off the coast of Quy Nhon City between 2009 and 2012.  There have also been instances of beachgoers being attacked by sharks.

Over the past decade, however, there have been neither any attacks nor shark sightings in Quy Nhon and neighboring areas.

The shark sighting follows a recent whale sighting off the coast of De Gi in Binh Dinh’s Phu Cat District.

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