Late in November 1861, the Captain and crew of the French steamer Alecton, were sailing off the North East coast of Tenerife when they spotted what they at first thought was shipwreck. How wrong could they have been???

Image courtesy of art.co.uk 

On approaching the ‘shipwreck’ it was found to be a large floating squid that was later said to be over 36 feet in length. The captain gave the order to attack and the crew peppered the Giant Squid with cannon fire, gun fire and harpoons, all of which proved to be useless. Eventually, the crew managed to secure a rope around the finned tail of the beast and tried to haul it aboard.

The sheer weight of a 36 feet squid being hoisted onto a ship meant that the creature was torn apart and it sank to the sea bed with the crew only managing to salvage the tail however, by the time the ship had returned to port (around Christmas) the only evidence of this Titanic struggle was the reports under oath of the Captain, his officers and men.

At the time, these reports were dismissed due to lack of evidence and giant squids were thought to be just myths.

Although Giant Squids have never been witnessed n their own environment (they are believed to exist in waters that are over 500m deep), it is generally accepted that they do exist.

So the next time you are in Tenerife, keep a look out for the Giant Squid.