 |
| Photo Jack Mears 2011 Guadalupe Island |
When Jack Mears called us in early 2011 his energy, excitement, and love of sharks came through the phone lines from the U.K as clear as the line itself.
This was a guy who just had to go shark diving with the Whites of Guadalupe.
Jack is now an Official Shark Diver and sent us this trip report from August. We'll have Jack come back and join us anytime because hard core sharks fans like him are why we exist:
Jack
Mears Trip Report 25-29 August 2011.
I
booked my trip with Shark Diver after having previously been on 2 unsuccessful
White shark diving trips in Australia
(we did have an angry young Mako which helped but still..).
I have to admit
this made me slightly skeptical of the guarantee offered to see sharks on every
trip but after a lot of web research and speaking to Patric the CEO at Shark Diver it
definitely looked like the best opportunity/trip.
I
boarded the boat late in the evening before the date of the trip, met
everybody, got paired up with a bunk mate and then after a quick beer went to
bed ready to clear customs in Mexico the following morning (which was a
complete breeze). We then sailed out to Guadalupe – the boat does move around
quite a lot it is an ocean after all but after knocking back a few sea sickness
tablets I didn’t have any problems the whole way there (or back).
The
first day started with us all being matched into groups for the cage rotations,
4 divers at a time in groups of 8 for the 2 cages. I can’t remember the exact
time frame but I’m pretty sure a shark turned up within about ten minutes of
being in the water. They then (as promised) turned up during nearly every dive
nearly for the rest of the trip. I believe there was only one dive where a
shark didn’t turn up but out of about 12/13 dives it seemed quite reasonable to
let them have one off.
All
in all we had about 10 known sharks I think but the
largest, Jacques was around for a good few hours and circled the cages slowly
and came very close again and again enabling everybody to get some really good
photos and videos. Every time I thought I wouldn’t get a better opportunity to
get another one, there he was again right next to us. Bearing in mind that was
only one shark on one day of the whole trip, we still had plenty of other
sharks to look at and (try to) photograph over the 2 and a half days diving.
After
the last dive of the day it was then time to grab a beer or two and sit in the
sun waiting for dinnertime as the sun went down. Every meal from start to
finish was phenomenal, Mark and Alyssa in the galley did not disappoint on any
meal over the whole trip it really was good. Combine the food with the people,
the weather, the beer and obviously, the sharks and it was a very good trip.
I
haven’t even mentioned the rest of the crew - Martin the divemaster was always
helpful and friendly as were the rest of the crew who helped with everything from
the chumming to our weights and getting us in and out of the cages whilst also
running the boat at the same time. The Captains, Spencer and Kyle, helped out
with the work and were more than happy to talk to us at any point as well as
the deckhands, Nick and Kyle who were always doing something around the boat.
There’s a crew member awake all night as well which helps if you can’t sleep or
you have a particularly loud ‘snorer’ in your cabin.
Overall
the trip exceeded my expectations, the crew were very good and all of the other
divers on the boat helped to make it better than I thought it was going to be. The
sea sickness was the only concern I had but I took enough pills and was fine
the whole time.
I
would highly recommend it to anyone and if I wasn’t already planning their Bahamas trip
next year I would definitely be planning on going again.
Cheers,
Jack.
