That Travel Chick Joins Shark Diver 2010 - Part Three

That Travel Chick aka Fort Lauderdale's Amanda joined us at Guadalupe Island in 2010 for the ultimate shark encounter. This is Part Three in her ongoing series diving with great whites and Shark Diver.

Her travel series is a must read for budding shark fans worldwide:

Day 1 of great white shark diving in Guadalupe Islands

I wake up before the butt crack of dawn. We have arrived at Guadalupe islands at 330am. I am up at 5am. I get to watch them put the cages in, the sun come up sorta and have a light breakfast of a bagel. I am anxious to get in the water but first we have to get our safety study course as well as tell us who our cell mates are and what rotation we are on.

My cell mates are Souxie, my roommate, and Brian Taylor who is in the Air Force. He is an airplane maintenance guy who is stationed in Korea and hopes to move back to the states with the next shift. I’m excited to have these 2 with me. The first shark sighting was at 733am. It’s very exciting to hear the crew yelling ‘SHAAAAAAAARK”…. Everyone runs to one side of the boat and then to the other to see him pop out. Our shift finally starts at 10am where we are on first rotation.. woohoo. SCORE. It normally starts at 8am but we had to get the dos and don’t of the cage and such. I’m last in and get a run down of what to do. They first of all weigh you down with at least 40lbs of weight since you want to sink not float, wear a 7mm suit with hoodies and booties. Water is still freaking cold with it all on.

We get in and almost instantly see a shark. We saw up to 4 at one time. A sea lion was literally playing TAG with the shark. Quite amusing. I guess element of surprise gig is up and they aren’t a meal know. It was quite funny to see them both interacting with each other. Lots of tuna which just made me want sushi. We had the sharks swimming so close to the cage. I even had a chance to stare down Jacques right into the eye and see his blue outer ring. Great whites have blue eyes. I never knew that. Maybe we are related. Hehehehe… I can be an apex predator. Well ok maybe not. The first time seeing a Great white I thought I would feel a bit scared but instead I felt peacefulness and calm. No adrenaline pumping. It was just breath-taking. They move so gracefully through the water and are cruising. Nothing menacing about them. They didn’t come up close to the cage till next time when Dottie was around as she was all up in the cage’s space. Jacques also was quite comfortable being around the cage. I only felt a little uncomfortable with the regulator. Luckily Martin, the dive master, was there to instruct me and give me a refresher. I am so used to snorkeling now.

The hour just seemed to fly by. It was terrific that we got to go in the first shift. Getting out with the massive amounts of weights was tricky but doable. The time out of the water was mostly spent on the sun deck passed out till you hear “15 minutes to next rotation”. We instantly jump up and head on down to try and squeeze into our wetsuits. I tend to put on suit juice so I can slide ride in. Each time we were in, we saw no less than 2 sharks. As the day went on the viz went down and so did the quantity of time the sharks spent with us. The water was freezing to me but as soon as those sharks start coming by and you lock eyes with them, all that rocking and freezing water in my suit goes away. It truly is the most amazing feeling I’ve ever had with an animal. It’s everything I could have dreamed of and more.

We even had the opportunity to see a sea lion that would frolic and even swim up next to the shark. It seemed to be a pretty decent size which means that it’s older and knows what it can and can’t get away with. It was really quite amazing to see it interact and somewhat harass him.

At the end of the day Martin takes in all the photos and helps identify all those that we have seen. Turns out we have seen 12. All of which he could identify easily. 2 of which hasn’t been seen since 2007 and 2008. It’s nice to know that they come back. Though not once did any of the sharks of a transmitter from the show The Great White Expedition which as it turns out has been going on since 2002. I did not know that.

Sharks we saw day 1:

1. Biteface #19
2. Shredder #13
3. Dottie #87 (dorsal tag)
4. Johnny #65
5. Arden grace #106
6. Jacques #46 (2 tags)
7. Ted #105 (partial back tail taken off)
8. Diablo #99
9. Geoff #74
10. Mau #76
11. Horizon #86 (small triangle on dorsal)(last appearance ’08)
12. Rainbow #25 (last appearance ’07)

That Travel Chick Joins Shark Diver 2010 - Part Two

That Travel Chick aka Fort Lauderdale's Amanda joined us at Guadalupe Island in 2010 for the ultimate shark encounter. This is Part Two in her ongoing series diving with great whites and Shark Diver.

Her travel series is a must read for budding shark fans worldwide:

Guadalupe Islands bound!

We don’t actually leave the dock till well past midnight but it doesn’t really matter since we don’t get to Ensenada Mexico til 830am the next morning to go by customs and such and pick up an observer to make sure we don’t do anything illegal. Hehehehe.. The sleeping on the boat with the rocking was quite calming. I did have a few beers before hand so I was up a few times which isn’t easy when sleeping quarters are downstairs and bathrooms are up and down the back fo the boat. My bunkmate/roommate for the stay is Souxie, a Canadian from Alberta. Such a sweetheart and she was on this trip a year ago so that gives me more confidence as I picked the right vessel to hit my top bucket list item on.

I slept till about 6am. I had gone without sleep for 24+ hours so that still wasn’t enough. Once we left Ensenada though is when the waters started to get rough. I actually had a very large breakfast. Potatoes, pancakes and bacon. Probably not the best Idea I had but I didn’t realize I would get so sea sick. I was better when I was laying down so I skipped lunch and dinner since I didn’t want to bring it up again and slept from 3pm till 5am the next day. Waking up long enough to pee and back to sleep. Boat was rocking sooo much that I nearly rolled off and had to position my feet in the right areas. It was surprisingly comfy though. I did however get to see Blue Whales as we were about an hour or so out of Ensenada. They are pretty common to see there so it was a real treat. Ive never seen Blue Whales just Humpbacks and an Orca.

One of the funniest introductions was with Sue, when the boat rocked and she went flying right into me. I was up against the guard rail. I said “ gee.. buy me a drink first at least” and told her to sign my bruise since it was inevitable. It was a good laugh. She was a good sport. She has such a great laugh too.

Next - Day One White Sharks

That Travel Chick Joins Shark Diver 2010

That Travel Chick aka Fort Lauderdale's Amanda joined us at Guadalupe Island in 2010 for the ultimate shark encounter.

Her site series is a must read for budding shark fans worldwide:

Countdown to the Great White Shark dive

It all started when I was 7 years old. My pop-pop (grandpa) would take me to the beach every week to collect shells. Thats what you do when you grow up in south Florida. One day I came across a shark’s tooth. I asked my mom to take me to the library (no internet back then) to see what type of tooth it was. I quickly learned it was a Tiger Shark. Gorgeous creatures by the way. In no time, I came home with every shark book I could find to learn more. I became a bit obsessed with sharks. Not much has changed since then. I started to read more and more about Great Whites. As a kid, I had a big love of dinosaurs and of course the T-Rex was my favorite, so it wasn’t hard for me to quickly fall in love with both the Tiger and Great White shark.

Since then, I’ve had dreams of swimming with a Great White. More occasions then not, being told I’m out of my mind, crazy, nuts, stupid. You name it, I’ve been told I am. I am stubborn and never listen. I constantly in the ocean swimming with nurse sharks and touching them when people swim the other way. I can’t help it. I just love all sharks. The way the move is so beautiful and graceful and so powerful. They feel amazing and to feel their muscles as they move is even more breath-taking.

I’ve been wanting to do a Great White shark dive for years but the trip to South Africa or Australia is loooong. Being a Shark Week geek, I never miss an episode and have seen many taking place in Mexico at Guadalupe Islands. I did some research and came across Shark Diver among a few others. I ended up with Shark Diver because the owner, Patrick, was a lot of fun to chat with, actually takes action on helping save the sharks and his package is all-inclusive. I also saw them on Shark Week. I decided that this was the year. I wasn’t going to wait any longer. What better way then to go for my birthday. I couldn’t have thought of a better gift to myself.

Complete series post.

Image Christy Fisher