Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Dan

Contributor
Messages
9,993
Reaction score
8,236
Location
Lake Jackson, Texas
# of dives
1000 - 2499
Summary
This is a liveaboard diving trip (11-16 August, 2021) to Guadalupe island with Nautilus Belle Amie. The itinerary, as shown in Table 1, includes 3 days of cage diving, three of 45-minute dives / day in each of three submersible (port, center and starboard) cages and two, first-come, first serve, surface (port and starboard) cages, which were open from 6:30am to 6:30pm, except for the last diving day (closed at 4:30pm) to a total of 9 submersible cage dives and as often as you want of surface cage dives. I ended up diving for about 4-6 hours / day.

Guadalupe 2021.jpg


Figure 1 shows the Nautilus Nautilus Belle Amie 248 miles (400 km) cruising routes (marked by red arrows) from Ensenada to Guadalupe island, which took about 23 hours of crossing. We saw about two dozens of Great White Sharks (GWS), large school of Pacific Jack Mackerel, few of Yellowtail Amberjack, a Fur Seal and a Kelp Bass.

0Slide2 (1).JPG

Figure 1: Nautilus Belle Amie routes in Revillagigedo Archipelago (courtesy of Google Earth)

Here is a short video of the highlight of what I saw during the 3 days of cage diving in Guadalupe island:


Background
Guadalupe island is about about 248 miles (400 km) southwest off Ensenada, Mexico, as shown in red dot, in Figure 1, above. Ensenada is about 2-hour drive south from San Diego. It would take about 23-hour voyage from Ensenada to Guadalupe island.

Since I live near Houston, Texas, it was an easy 3-hour nonstop flight to San Diego, which is great way in minimizing exposure to strangers in the airport during this pandemic period.

This is my first time to do cage diving. The original trip was supposed to be in July last year. It was rescheduled to this August, 2021 due to the pandemic. The water temperatures in Guadalupe island are reported to about 70-75 °F (21-24 °C) during this time of the year. I brought a 7mm full wetsuit with hood. The water temperature turned out to be as reported and I was comfortable with the wetsuit.

The Liveaboard
Nautilus Belle Amie, as shown in Figure 2, is 134-foot (41m) long ship with 17 cabins, catering for up to 35 guests, along with three rigid inflatable boats (RIB), see Nautilus Belle Amie - Nautilus Liveaboards for more detail info. It is the newest and largest of Nautilus liveaboards. The wide body makes it more steady sailing in the open pacific ocean and the quietness of the engine and calm sea made me sleep like baby at night. I didn’t even need a motion sickness during the 23-hour crossing.

upload_2021-8-24_20-48-53.png

Figure 2: Nautilus Belle Amie (courtesy of Nautilus Liveaboards)

It runs by 13 crews (a captain, a mate, an officer, an engineer, a chef, 3 hosts, a deckhand and 4 divemasters) for 30 guests on this trip. So, they work very hard to maintain day-to-day operation of the boat and to serve the guests.

The boat layout is very functional for divers. Galley, dinning, and saloon areas are on the main deck. Camera station and dive deck are outside on the back of the main deck. Eight staterooms and a triple stateroom are in lower deck. Two premium suites are on the main deck. Six premium suites are on the upper deck. Above the upper deck is a sundeck with open air sitting area for people to relax in between diving, where people can spread out and keep social distancing.

The lower-deck stateroom, where I stayed, has a single bed on one side with longer leg room for tall person, next to the shower, as shown in Figure 3, below.

upload_2021-8-24_20-50-20.png

Figure 3: Left side of Nautilus Belle Amie lower-deck stateroom cabin

On the other side of the cabin is a double bed, next to toilet, as shown in Figure 4, below.

upload_2021-8-24_20-51-2.png

Figure 4: Right side of Nautilus Belle Amie lower-deck stateroom

There are plenty of closet space and to store our luggage below the bed for 2 divers, as you see in the two pictures, above. The hosts did a great job of keeping our cabin cleaned and orderly.

Setting up our dive gears and handling them were easier than normal diving as we didn’t need regulators, fins and tanks since they provided a weighted vest and 10-bar hookah system. We just needed to bring my own wetsuit, hood, boots or rent them if you want to travel light. Once we kit up, the crew would put the weighted vest (they came in small, medium and large sizes. I think I had a medium size with 27-pound weight) on you and a quick-connect 2nd stage regulator necklace (that would stay with you for the entire 3-day cage diving). Before entering the cage top gate, DM would connect the hookah 2nd-stage regulator to the 10-bar hookah system and purged some air out of the regulator to make sure it worked properly and no trap water in mouthbit. Each of us was provided with a tray to store the hookah 2nd-stage regulator, mask, hood, boots after each dive.

Figure 5, below, shows the 3 submersible & 2 surface cages on the dive deck area before the crew set them in the water on site.

upload_2021-8-24_20-52-24.png

Figure 5: Nautilus Belle Amie 3 submersible and 2 surface cages on dive deck

On the night of arrival in Guadalupe Island the cages were set up in the water for the three-day cage diving. The cages opened for action at 6:30am on the three cage-diving days, closed at 6:30pm on cage-diving day 1 and 2. They closed the cages at 4:30pm on the last day, so they could put them back on the dive deck for return voyage, so we could be back in Ensenada and disembarked the boat before 4pm on the next day.

Figure 6 shows frozen Yellowfin tuna before being massacred (cut up in pieces for shark wrangling baits). They brought 250 kg frozen Yellowfin Tuna for wrangling the GWS during the three-day cage diving. Each Tuna was cut up into wafers with chainsaw at 5am on first cage diving day.

upload_2021-8-24_20-53-18.png

Figure 6: Frozen Yellowfin Tuna before being massacred for shark wrangling bait

The meals (breakfast, lunch & dinner) were served by the hosts during this pandemic situation, no buffet. Continental breakfast started at 7:00am. Hot breakfast, lunch and dinner started at 9:30am, 2:30pm, and 7:30pm, respectively. The food were excellent. Special dietary meal were served to those who asked for it.

Most guests wore mask when they were outside of their cabins, except during mealtime, where we were spread over the huge dining area, as shown in Figure 7, below.

upload_2021-8-24_20-54-14.png

Figure 7: Nautilus Belle Amie dining room

They have a spacious Saloon, where I hang out mostly when I edited my pictures after diving and meal time, as shown in Figure 8, below.

upload_2021-8-24_20-55-30.png

Figure 8: Nautilus Belle Amie Saloon

The diving
To get equal share of the submersible cages for everyone, we did 3 of 45-minute submersible cage dives / day in 3 diving days on schedule. There are 3 locations of submersible cages, at port, center and starboard sides of dive deck. So everyone had a chance to dive in those 3 sides each day. Each submersible cage took 3 divers and a DM, who would control the depth and dive time. If we wanted to dive near the surface, DM could set the cage up at the surface.

The 2 surface cages are first-come, first-serve. Each cages can fit up to 4 divers without DM. You can go in and out as you wish. During the three-diving days, there were no waiting line in any of the surface cages. In fact sometime they were empty or only had one or two divers after the first day of diving as divers pretty much got what he / she wanted to see. I spent about 4 to 6 hours on each diving days in all of the 5 cages.

Typical cage diving schedule was as follows:

06:30 – Surface age open
07:00 – Continental breakfast
08:00 – Submersible cage schedule start
09:30 – Hot breakfast
12:30 – Lunch
16:00 – Submersible cage schedule end
18:30 – All cages close
18:30 – Cocktail, Shark 101
19:30 – Dinner

We saw about two dozen GWS, large school of Pacific Jack Mackerel, a few of Yellowtail Amberjack, a Fur Seal and a Kelp Bass. Some of GWS came real close to the cage checking us out, as shown in Figure 9, below.

gws9.JPG

Figure 9: Guadalupe Great White

Conclusions
My impression of the cage diving and the trip are very positive. If you want to see Great White Shark in a clear blue water up close, Guadalupe island, Mexico, is the right place to go. The liveaboard is very well organized and programmed to meet the COVID-19 protocols while on the boat. The boat is huge, stable, and quiet. It is the kind of boat we need to have to spread out and keeping social distancing during this pandemic period.
 
Thnx for a great report
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dan
thanks Dan for the video
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dan
thanks Dan for the video
You're welcome.

Forgot to mention about Covid protocol for Nautilus. Although Mexico does not require visitor to get Covid test, Nautilus does. We are required to log our body temperatures, twice a day, for 7 days and PCR or antigen test within 7 days before arriving in Ensenada. Upon checking in to Nautilus at Hotel Coral, we would need to submit the temperature log sheet and show the negative Covid test result. Then everyone would be antigen test (at no charge) on site within 2 hours before boarding on the boat.

On the return bus ride back to San Diego, no Covid test is required. However, be prepared for about 2 hours of waiting at a long line before entering into the land port San Ignacio US Immigration.
 
thank you for the information about COVID procedures at Nautilus
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dan
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

Back
Top Bottom