Putting Kids in Cages with Great White Sharks

By on September 19th, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike, Guadalupe

Captain Mike here, back at the helm and loving it! I’ve been on days off, with Captain Dave doing an excellent job of covering things, but it is really nice to be back onboard. Even better, this is the start of our long-awaited “Family trip,” and we have five kids onboard (including my 7-year-old daughter, Emily, and 5-year-old son, Charlie) chomping at the bit to see great white sharks!! The rest of our passenger list includes journalists, two film crews, Mauricio Hoyos (our favourite shark scientist) and some greatly appreciated ‘regular’ guests.

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7 Great White Sharks at One Time!

By on September 16th, 2007 in Archive, Guadalupe

After an hour of chumming at our new location we had white sharks everywhere with at least seven different individuals coming and going, and at one point could clearly see five sharks! Even from the surface, the views were fabulous. This was non-stop until we began to pull out our cages for the trip back to Ensenada. Even whilst lifting the cages there were sharks circling, making life for the divemasters a little bit more exciting. All our guests reported that they had three fantastic days of cage diving on the island of Guadalupe, with one guest openly admitting that it was the best experience of his life.

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Full Breach of a Great White Shark

By on September 15th, 2007 in Archive, Guadalupe

Day two started with a bang when, after an hour of chumming, and with no bait lines in the water, a large great white shark was seen to fully breach the surface only a few feet from the back of the cage. Needless to say, there was a sudden scramble for people to get into the cages! Whilst the white shark action on day two did not quite meet that of day one, it was still a fantastic day with episodes of sustained activity around the cages.

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Awestruck and Happy Guests Diving in Cages

By on September 14th, 2007 in Archive, Guadalupe

Fortunately, the mako did not hang around and the reason was soon clear when a couple of 12′ male great whites showed up and seemed to be taking turns to make a run on baits we had out. Despite the best efforts of the crew on the bait lines, the sharks seemed to be on a winning streak.

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Unusually Aggressive Great White Sharks

By on September 11th, 2007 in Archive, Guadalupe

The behaviour is reportedly very different than anything we have seen before with multiple shark breaches each day, lots of competitive behaviour between the individual animals and aggressive and high speed passes under the boat and off the transom. This is very different than the slower and graceful behaviour that we have seen in past seasons. I’m not sure what to make of it and am fearful that the root cause is hungry sharks because of a reduced stock of tuna around Isla Guadalupe.

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Kick-off for our Guadalupe Island Great White Shark Season

By on September 10th, 2007 in Archive, Guadalupe

Dave and the divemasters reported that the first shark appeared within 20 minutes of putting the first cage in the water. Total number of sightings included at least eight great white sharks (maybe more), including our old friends Shredder (with the tattered dorsal fin) and Bruce.

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New legislation to protect shark populations

By on March 3rd, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike, Guadalupe, Socorro

Very, very exciting news on our end is the enactment of new legislation in Mexico designed to protect shark populations. I couldn’t be more ecstatic about the news. Is my pleasure inform you that the “Mexican Official Standard Rule NOM-029-PESC-2006, Responsible shark and ray fisheries” was published last February 14, 2007 in the Federal Gazette of the Mexican Government. This set of regulations will improve the management of all shark fisheries (artisanal and offshore) in Mexico and will promote the conservation of shark stocks and vulnerable shark and ray species.

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