Location: Shark Bay, Guadalupe Island
Well, the suspense is over. Today is the first day of our 2009 Guadalupe great white shark season and the sharks are here for sure. Arrived on station and anchored between the dive boat Solmar V and the research vessel Captain Jack with the diveboat Horizon anchored off in the distance. Got our surface cages into the water and the first great white shark showed up within about 30 minutes. Took a little longer to get our submersible cages in the water – one of the cages is brand-new and needed some last-minute tweaking and tuning and safety checks – but we got those cages going within the hour and “gosh”, the diving was as excellent as ever. in the first six hours of diving, we observed five different sharks with up to three big whites swimming around the cages at one time. Spotted one female and all the other animals were males including 2 of our old buddies – Shredder and Bruce. Visibility was down to about 125 feet which is excellent anywhere else but only average for Guadalupe Island. Noticed a really big thermocline with the water temperature at the surface being 75° and then chilling out to the more normal is 72° descending through 15 feet. Our new launching system for the submersible cages met my expectations and works really well allowing back-to-back submersible diving. I divemastered a total of four submersible dives myself today and WOW, I had forgotten what a crazy feeling it is to be standing on the top of a double-decker submersible cage in 40 feet of water and watching a couple of different great white shark swim past. Can’t wait to get back in the water tomorrow and see what the day holds. Also looking forward to scientist Mauricio Hoyos joining us tonight and putting on a presentation about his continuing scientific investigation with this particular population of great white sharks. Captain Mike.
Weather: Clear skies, light winds, very low chop on the water, air temperature low 80’s..
Water: 125 foot visibility, 75 degree water temp on the surface, 72 degrees at depth..
Season opener – Guadalupe Island great white sharks
