A suspected unexploded bomb floated around a tiny cove for four days, the man who hauled it from the water said yesterday.

Shelton Fleming and friend Gary Bean sparked a major alert involving the Police bomb squad, the Bermuda Regiment, and the Fire and Ambulance Service after they pulled the suspected explosive device to shore in Burchall's Cove, Hamilton Parish, yesterday morning.

Mr. Fleming said he and Mr. Bean, of Radnor Road, Hamilton Parish, had been working on his boat when they spotted the device.

He said: "It was covered in barnacles -- it's been in the water for quite a while I think.

"We noticed it drifting around the bay a few days ago. I didn't realise what it was.

"Gary looked at it and said `let's take it out' -- then we realised it was a bomb and called the Police.'' Mr. Fleming, from nearby My Lord's Bay Lane, added: "It looked exactly as you'd think a bomb would look -- cylinder-shaped with a tail on it.'' But he insisted: "It didn't really frighten me, because I knew it had been in the water a long time.'' Police closed off North Shore Road for hundreds of yards either side, diverted traffic and evacuated nearby houses while Police experts probed the find, which was reported yesterday morning.

The device -- around four feet long and a foot in diameter -- was loaded into a special trailer by Police.

Escorted by a fire engine, it was taken to the old Baselands for disposal by controlled explosion.

Police last night were unable to say where the bomb -- thought to have been aircraft-carried -- had come originally come from, its age, or whether it was live or a practice device.