After a day at sea, we arrived at Guadalupe, ready to see
some Great White Sharks. As part of our safety orientation I demonstrated the
entering of the cages. As soon as I hit the bottom of the cage,...... White
Shaaaaaaark! Bruce, a face I've gotten to know pretty well over the last 10
years, swam by and looked me in straight in the eye. What a way to start the
day!
The day continued at an awesome pace. Sharks in every
rotation with some very close passes by the cage. "Drogin" a 13ft.
Shark, showed us how agile he is and
made an impossible tight turn right in front of the cage. The final tally was
at least 13 different Sharks for the day. Then, just as we're getting ready for
the roast prime rib dinner, a full breach, just a couple of feet away from the
rail. What a way to end the perfect day.
Day 2 of Shark diving started out with a bang. 6:45 am
another full breach, right by the boat. "Sharkbait", a little sea
lion that has kept us company for the last couple of trips is getting scared
and is on his way up the swimstep ladder, headed for the safety of the back
deck. I talk him back down into the water, where he starts chasing the sharks,
like he did the day before. Between shifts, he jumps back up on the swim
platform and takes a break from harassing the Sharks.
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| Great action all day! Photo Chad Vasconcellos |
The action holds steady all day, with fewer sharks than on
the first day, but "Johnny" and "Drogin" putting on a show
all day long. What an awesome trip! What will our last day at the Island bring?
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| "Sharkbait" Photo Martin Graf |
Day 3 Just as I'm attaching the cages to the swimstep,
"Sharkbait" came racing towards me. I was thinking, "What's your
hurry?" when a big Shark jumped clear out of the water, just feet away
from me. This was getting ridiculous. 3 breaches on one trip!? Who says the
sharks only fly in South Africa? Then about 20 minutes later as we were loading
the cages, you guessed it, another full breach just feet from the boat. Mind
you, we had no chum or bait in the water for any of the breaches. The sharks
just jumped for reasons only known to them. Then just in case somebody missed
the first 4 breaches, another Shark decided to join his buddies and jumped out
of the water about 50 yards behind our vessel.
As we were leaving the Islands, a pod of dolphins rode our
bow for a while and just for good measure, one of them jumped higher than our
rail and flopped sideways into the water a couple of times. The ride home was
smooth as glass, a perfect ending to an awesome trip!
Cheers,
Martin Graf
Dive Operations Manager
Horizoncharters
