The pic I posted was taken at Isla de Guadalupe, Mexico.
September 25-29 2002.
11 different Great Whites in 3 days of diving!
It was the record until the first trip of this season when they had 12, then 17 sharks on the second trip of 2003! Unbelieveable!
Check
www.sharkdivermag.com
at the shark report section for a report on this seasons trips.
The season goes from September through November.
I went with Golden Gate Expeditions aboard the "Searcher".
www.GREATWHITEADVENTURES.com
The boat crew were fantastic, especially the cook, as were the folks from GGE.
Lawrence Groth (GGE) is a very safety concious shark dive operator and I would recommend him to anyone interested. This is the trip of a lifetime!
There were 12 people on this particular trip, with a max load of 16.
It is a 5-day trip.
One day to get there, 3 to dive, and one day to return.
These trips seem to be a very meat and potatoes type crowd.
You are aboard a fishing boat converted to a dive boat, no mints on the pillow on this live-a-board! The bunks are tight, but who cares, you only sleep there. And if the sharks are around at night you won't be sleeping anyway...you'll be in the cage!
A skiff is added to the back for shark trips, where the cages are fastened to the stern of the boat. They are deployed on the surface making entry/exit fairly easy for a resonably fit individual. The cage construction is superb and easily fits 4 divers at a time. On this trip we only had 3 people per cage, which was great!
All of this years trips are currently sold out as Guadalupe is gaining quite a reputation as THE place to view white sharks.
This is only the third season for these expeditions.
You don't need to be an advanced diver for cage diving.
Just have basic common sense, keep arms in the cage, be respectful of others in the cage, etc.
The people on this trip were all experienced divers, with the exception of a few.
Cage diving is as easy as it gets, and in my opinion, has the greatest reward when viewing white sharks.
If you are considering going to Guadalupe, you might want to book now.
San Diego Shark Diving is 99% sold out for 2004.
I will be getting my deposit to GGE real soon for next season.
There is a third Guadalupe Shark Dive operator, but I would not consider going with them, due to what I feel is a lack of experience with Great White Sharks. I won't name any names, but it's neither of the two mentioned above.
Anyways, I hope that answers your questions.
Let me know if you have any more.
Bill Fisher