Tied Up to the Dock in a Dust Storm

By on October 22nd, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike, Guadalupe

Freak conditions for sure with a large residual wave train travelling down the coast and colliding with the strongest sustained Santa Ana winds in Baja California that anyone can remember. It’s been blowing 35 – 40 knots in Ensenada for two days now with very reduced visibility in a miserable dust storm. Everyone in town is wearing dust masks, the power is flickering on and off and everything – EVERYTHING – on the Nautilus is covered with a thick layer of gritty dust. It hurts your eyes just to walk upwind.

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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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Night diving at Socorro and San Benedicto Islands

By on May 11th, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike

I often get asked why we don’t offer more night diving at Socorro and San Benedicto Islands (Islas Revillagigedos). Quite frankly, the ever-present silky sharks become overly inquisitive once the sun goes down and switch over into “hunting mode.” Still, I always try to offer at least one snorkelling opportunity after dark.

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Annual Shipyard Refit

By on May 3rd, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike

Well, today is Day 3 of our annual shipyard refit. We choose to drydock the Nautilus Explorer every spring to spruce things up and continue our quest for continuous improvement. Actually, drydock isn’t quite accurate as that refers to a floating dock that is submerged to the point where a ship can be positioned over the main deck and then the dock’s ballast tanks are pumped out, lifting the ship out of the water. To be technically precise, the Nautilus was slipped on a synchrolift – which is a network of railway tracks with bogies that are towed onto a submersible platform that is then lowered into the water by 16 precisely synchronized electric hoists with the ship then positioned on top of the bogies and the platform then lifted out of the water. The synchrolift that we use at Gran Peninsula shipyard in Ensenada is capable of lifting a 300ft ship! So a 325-ton ship like the Nautilus Explorer is just a little job for them.

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It’s a wrap for this year with the great white sharks of Guadalupe Island

By on October 17th, 2006 in Archive, Captain Mike, Guadalupe

Well, it’s a wrap for this year with the great white sharks of Guadalupe Island. We are en route from Guadalupe to Ensenada, Mexico to disembark our last shark trip before steaming south to Cabo San Lucas and the first of our Sea of Cortez trips…

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Super hot diving this morning with great white sharks

By on October 16th, 2006 in Archive, Captain Mike, Guadalupe

The diving is super hot this morning, with great white sharks continuously around the back of the Nautilus Explorer. The last day and a half were quiet with sporadic sightings (although our first afternoon was good), but the winds have died down and the white sharks are back with a vengeance.

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