Location: Guadalupe Island, Baja California, Mexico
This trip is a very special one. We have on board the Historical Diving Society who has invited a couple of diving‚s pioneers. Bev Morgan who wrote and published the first diving manuals setting the stage for the modern diving practices we all dive by. The other dive legend was Bob Meistrell who, along with his late brother Bill, founded and developed Body Glove. Both were a pleasure to have on board and enriched the trip considerably by telling fantastic stories about the birth of modern day diving.
Everyone have their passports? After a minor delay waiting for a passport to be delivered, the bus arrived at the Nautilus Explorer. With all the guests aboard, we cast off our lines and headed out to sea. A delicate groundswell was a reassuring gesture from the Pacific, as the forecast called for increasing weather and seas as we approached our destination, Guadalupe Island, 185 nautical miles.
Diving Day 1
Seeking shelter from the forecasted southern swell pushed up from hurricane Rick, Mike opted to set the hook at Twin Canyons, a spot located in the southern portion of Shark Bay. When the sun came up, it revealed that although we were hidden from the rolling southern swell, we had little protection from the north. Eager to get in the water, we launched the cages and started the submersible rotations. The first few groups were entertained by a school of juvenile mackerel and later a California Sea Lion came in to see what was going on. By noon, only one glimpse of a shark had been sighted, so we decided to pull up the hook and move a little further north in search of better sharking. At our new location, the visibility was greatly improved. We had escaped the mung layer that had clouded up the water closer to the Elephant Seal Beach of Twin Canyons. We restarted the rotations but unfortunately did not have even a mackerel for the rest of the day. Some days just are not meant for diving. We moved the boat once again in hopes that the sharks will find us in the morning. After the cages were pulled out of the water for the day, Ed Stetson showed some excellent footage of trips from around the world. The weather report called for calmer seas in the morning.
Weather: Sky Partly Cloudy, Wind 10-15kts NW, Swell 2-4‚NW
Water: Visibility 40-60‚ Temperature 68° F
Historical Diving Society and Passports
