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AND THEN WE SAW OUR FIRST SHARK! Yeah!!! I was so happy for Charlie. I pointed it out to him and he stayed amazingly cool and just intently watched it swim past. He then spotted the next shark 10 minutes later and calmly walked over to the other side of the cage to watch it swim away. And then the next one and next one. I think we had 10 shark sightings with Charlie spotting 9 of them.
Read MoreMy heart swelled with pride as I watched my 7-year-old daughter comfortably standing on the bottom of the cage in her wetsuit, booties, hood, mask and regulator intently watching the sharks. Mary Anne actually had a bit of trouble getting Emmy to pull her head back in the cage as a white shark swam by 4 feet away!! And even more trouble getting Emily out of the water… turns out that my daughter appears to be a mermaid and was extremely reluctant to climb out of the cage! I couldn’t be prouder.
Read MoreWe were all very concerned that the kids not feel any pressure to get in the water and worked out a process in which the kids would practice with scuba regulators in the hot tub, then get familiarized with the cages and finally – gently – allow them the option of getting into the water. That all went out the window when the kids started jumping into the cages right after breakfast!! I couldn’t believe how fearless they were. On 6-year-old Max’s second dive, his Dad said “Go down Max,” at which his son immediately dropped to the bottom of the cage and stared intently out through the bars.
Read MoreCaptain 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.
Read MoreAfter 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.
Read MoreDay 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.
Read MoreFortunately, 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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