To our great surprise, some even smaller sharks showed up as well. Newborn great white sharks are believed to be 1.5 metres in length (slightly less than 5 feet). Well, we saw 2 different sharks that couldn’t have been more than 6 feet long! Way cool and I would think much younger than even a year old. They were unbelievably cute (if you are into great white sharks that is).
Read MoreToday we had visual confirmation that at least one of the great white sharks of Guadalupe Island does indeed – ahem – poop in the water. And boy when they do, is there ever a lot of poop!! It was my turn to play at shark wrangling when I spotted a big female swimming under the boat. Something looked odd – as if she was trailing something. Some of our guests were watching from the hot-tub deck and shouted out “2 sharks,” “no, 3 sharks,” “no, 5 sharks,” “man, there are 6 sharks there.” By that point in time, I had figured out what was going on and shouted back “heck no, that is one very big shark taking a personal moment in front of you!!!” Digital and video evidence confirmed my contention. The amount of discharged material was quite astonishing but I suppose, not unreasonable for a 2500 pound animal that is 17 feet long.
Read MoreOne very interesting animal today was a very large beautiful female. It is unusual to see such a “clean” shark – no scars, no bite marks, no disfigurations, no tags – and even more unusual to see a very large female this early in the Guadalupe season. Chatting with our guests later during cocktail hour, I was surprised to find that they all got the same spooky feeling from this shark that I did. She was one scary shark and it felt very uncomfortable when she started doing extremely close passes in front of the cage. It is very unusual to run across a white shark that is scary but there is no other way to describe this big female. Her habit of rocketing up out of the deep to take the tuna bait was exceptionally disconcerting.
Read MoreGreat white shark sightings and behaviour were EXCELLENT today with more animals than I have ever seen before. Positive identifications included poor tattered old Shredder (he is one beat up looking shark!), Skid, New Rock, Criss Cross as well as some other animals that we couldn’t positively ID. At one point four sharks were circling 40 feet deep below the boat! All the sharks that we saw were males today. The award for most interesting behaviour would have to go to one very inquisitive 9 foot juvenile. This guy would come very close to the cages and was not at all hesitant about mixing it up with much bigger animals.
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 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.
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