A touch of the tropics came to the Island when a slippery character arrived at Sheerness docks.

Sheppey waters were briefly home to a sunfish, whose scientific name is mola mola.

The fish, which prefers warm waters, is a rare visitor to Britain’s shores and although it is occasionally carried to the south west of Britain on the Gulf Stream, its appearance off Sheppey is unheard of.

Tugman Ray Newing, of Sheerness High Street, was passing by number 11 pontoon at lunchtime when he found dockyard engineer James Pepper, 28, trying to rescue the creature, which can grow up to 11ft in length.

Dr Jean-Luc Solandt, of the Marine Conservation Society, said: “It is really unusual to see a sunfish so far to the east of the country as it is not really the best conditions for them.

“It may have been carried along by a strong current or in a storm.”

Dr Solandt said that he was only aware of one other case of a sunfish found off Kent – one that had been washed up dead off the north Kent coast in December 2006.

The grey fish has a flat body with long fins and feeds off jellyfish, which are plentiful in the spring and early summer.

Mr Newing said he thought Sheppey’s visitor had come in on the high tide and become trapped in the steel dividers of the pontoon as the waters receded.

“I’ve been a tugman for 18 years and I have never seen anything like this,” he said.

Mr Pepper picked up the sunfish, which he said weighed about 30lb, and after several attempts successfully returned it to open water.

But his rescue attempt also left him injured.

He said: “The sunfish was very slimy, but also had sharp parts on its body and I have cuts on my arms from where I held on to it.”

Sunfish - the facts

• The sunfish is the world’s largest bony fish.
• It is pelagic – meaning it lives in the open ocean as opposed to waters close to land.
• A sunfish has a small brain compared to its size and one weighing 440lb may have a brain the size of a nut weighing only 4g