What has been described as a calamar gigante (giant squid) made an appearance in the surf on Playa Granada today.

Obviously, many beachgoers would have preferred to have seen it on a plate with chips rather than leering at them a mere meter away in the water in front of Chiringuito Chambao,  but that didn’t stop a small crowd gathering to see the ‘beast from the deep.’.

According to an Ideal article by Sara Bárcena Hernández, Francisco Alabarce and his wife were practicing the Spanish Olympic sport of sunbathing on the beach when the calamar began frolicking in front of them, so he took a video on his phone.

The siting was  just before one in the afternoon, although at first he hadn’t a clue what it was – he ruled out the possibility that it was a mermaid beckoning to him, only because his wife was sitting next to him, before recognising  that it was a squid… and a rather large one.

Obviously bored of hitting on Francisco, the flirtatious squid slung its hook and headed out to see… *sniff!*

But it’s not the first time that a large squid has appeared on the Costa Tropical because last summer, a fishing boat fished out one weighing 13 kilos, that they had picked up in their net 400 metres down.

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