WRESTLING with sharks? That shouldn't throw up too many problems for salty old sea dog Andrew Penman, or so we thought...

'You're going shark tagging with the WWF' they said. Excellent I thought - an afternoon with Hulk Hogan and the pals demonstrating some new-fangled wrestling tag match - no problem.

How wrong I was. I turned up at Neyland marina several hours before the crack of dawn only to discover that rather than the World Wrestling Federation, I'd committed myself to 11 hours on the high seas with the World Wildlife Fund.

And we'd be hauling live sharks on board a tiny boat in order to tag them and track their movements. I was certainly glad I hadn't worn my spandex shorts and Wrestlemania 97 t-shirt. Boy, would my face have been red! Unfortunately it was a nasty shade of green for most of the trip, but more of that later.

The trip was organised by the WWF to highlight the voluntary tagging scheme, run by sea anglers and skippers, which aims to find out more about the sharks that populate UK waters by monitoring their movements and behaviour.

The most common sharks off the Pembrokeshire coast are blue sharks. Adding tags mean that, if the sharks are recaptured anywhere in the world, their vital statistics, such as the size and weight, can be forwarded to conservationists in the UK.

Simon Walmsley, WWF head of marine programme, explained why this work was so important.

"If we can find out where they are actually breeding or where their food sources are, then we can at least advise on how we can protect the species from various things that happen at sea like commercial fisheries," he said.

As the early morning mist cleared and the sun began to rear its beautiful head we cruised past St. Ann's Head, past Skomer and Skokholm and out into open sea.

I was sipping coffee and discussing the merits of Jaws 4: The Revenge with Ruth Bates from the WWF and a guy from BBC Wales, all was right with the world.

Then suddenly, 25 miles out, we stopped. We'd found the Gulf Stream. We were in shark country.

Professional angler Chris, a genial scouser with more than a passing resemblance to John Prescott, began mashing up mouldy old Haddock to entice our target to the surface, the sun disappeared behind a cloud, and I was sick for the first time.

Luckily nobody seemed to notice as we bagged our first shark almost simultaneously.

At around five ft long, this was to be our biggest catch of the day and it certainly put up a big fight.

Even as Simon hauled it aboard, it was still thrashing about like an ageing rocker on a bad acid trip.

Then, quicker than you can say 'I don't suppose anyone has got any sea-sickness tablets?' skipper John Hambidge and his brother Phil sprang into action. The shark, the sun bouncing off its bright blue back, was subdued. One man held the head, another took the tail as Phil made a small incision below the fin and hammered in the tag. There was just time for a quick photo before throwing our subject back to the increasing swell.

The next five or six hours are a bit of a blur. As the excitement of the first catch abated, the reality of the long hard slog ahead hit home. With my stomach being churned like butter my only option was to sit quietly, stare at the horizon and dash to the toilet every ten minutes or so.

A wise man once said that with sea-sickness you start off thinking 'at least I won't die' and end up thinking 'oh God, please let me die'. And that about sums it up.

But it wasn't all bad. We saw several groups of dolphins swimming close to the boat, possibly the highlight of the day for me, and a fleeting glimpse of the back of a Minky whale. Well, we think it was a whale, it could have been a flotilla of Tesco trolleys for all I know.

We also caught, tagged and released six blue sharks. Not a bad haul according to Phil but there is still a huge job to be done. On average you need to tag 100 sharks to get one returned, so there's still a long way to go with this excellent project.

But, working on the principle that if you've seen six sharks then you've seen them all, we eventually headed for home. Almost immediately the sun broke through the clouds and I knew I'd make it back alive. I've never been so glad to see the beautiful oil refineries of Milford Haven in all my life.