A La Herradura diving instructor was in the middle of a practical class 15 metres down when a pupil noticed a sunfish.

Instructor Mauro Cardarelli led the class to take a closer look and found that the creature had a fish hook stuck in the side of its mouth and trailing several metres of line. He decided to do something about it.

The first thing he did was dismiss the class by sending them all to the surface – the dive was near the end dictated by their oxygen reserves.

He ascended himself to the five-metre level bring the fish up with him in his arms and there liberated the fish of its troublesome burden.

The sunfish or pez luna, as it is known in Spanish, is the largest skeletal (boney) fish in the sea – sharks and tuna fish have cartilage and whales, of course, aren’t fish. It is also a friendly-giant visitor to La Herradura Bay, weighing between 247 and 1,000 kg – the one in this story was much smaller, weighing about 15 kilos.

Besides being friendly and aquatic residents of La Herradura Bay, they also consume a lot of jellyfish, which is another bonus.

(News: Herradura, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)