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Diving with Great Whites in...Mexico!
by Patric Douglas
For divers who attended DEMA this year a lot of talk centered
on Isla Guadalupe, Great White sharks, and what divers from
all over the world are now calling “Great White
Heaven”.
In late September 2002 I joined Absolute Adventures-Shark
Diver, www.sharkdiver.com a California based white shark
Dive Company on a 5-day live aboard dive expedition. Guadalupe
is a forbidding collection of ancient volcanic cinder cones,
dramatic offshore rocks and high mountain ridges etched against
blue cloudless skies. This was where I was going to meet
a Great White shark; I would be cage diving for the first
time ever.
 Our group of divers arrived
after an uneventful overnight steam from San Diego’s
Fisherman’s Landing to a perfect morning at Isla Guadalupe. Some of our
dive crew had come as far as New Mexico, New Jersey, Chicago and France. My
favorite team so far were the Kelly Brothers, two military doctors who were
looking for a quick vacation between deployments. After a hearty breakfast,
shark operations had begun off the stern, cages were in the water and our dive
master was taking money and bets as to when the first shark would show up.
I put down $20.00 on 11.30, about two hours from now. To my surprise and shock
not three minutes later the call went out “shark!”
Everyone rushed over the side to see a 14 foot male great
white cruise past the boat
and eyeball us with great interest, the experience was made even more exciting
by the clarity
of the water, 100 foot vis
is the status quo at Guadalupe making for spectacular viewing. Pandemonium
reigned for the
next ten minutes as divers
clambered for gear, film and video was inserted into cameras and Team One,
the first eight lucky
divers, were dropped into viewing
cages.
I was on the stern in time to see the second 12-foot white
shark appear not ten minutes
after the last diver from Team One had arrived in the cage.
You could tell the divers were
excited as bubbles from low-pressure
air hoses erupted to the surface like an underwater hurricane.
Great whites continued
to show up one after the other,
until we had 6-7 at our cages in the 12-16 foot size. Shark
operations had two Albacore
tuna hang baits in the water
near the cages. Great whites would cruise past and suddenly
charge these baits crushing
them with ease in their powerful
jaws for a quick bloody snack. Another storm of bubbles from
the divers below, another
crunching attack on the hang
baits, it was almost my turn.
Getting in the water with the worlds top ocean predator
is a real mental two-step. While the “simian” or
naked ape in you begins to send all sorts of chemical signals
that you have no control over to your brain. Signals like, “don’t
do this”, “go hide in your cabin”, and “wouldn’t
dry land feel great underfoot right now”? Your brain
is telling you to ignore the naked ape and just go! Your
body interprets these signals as elevated blood pressure,
sweat on the brow and rapid breathing. I admit I was suffering
from all three. Unlike Team One who entered the water immediately
we on Team Two had a chance to see the tuna-teeth crunching
action topside, hence the mental two step.
It was the second team’s turn and I found myself
with legs dangling over the opening in the cage about to
push off into the blue abyss. Not before the naked ape in
me had one more chance to complain after spotting a rather
large 15 foot white shark cruise past just on the other side.
I went in with a small splash, the brain had won over that
day, Hurrah!
The first thing I was struck with upon entering the shark
cage was the water clarity. I might have been swimming in
Bombay Gin, it was that clear. The clarity also allowed me
to see all 6 great whites at the same time, orbiting in a
leisurely pattern around the hang baits and cage. These were
magnificent animals; they would pass within touching distance,
black eyeballs staring not at you but completely through
you. I could see minute details like old and fresh scars,
unfortunate trailing lines from encounters with fishermen,
and lots and lots of teeth.
 Great whites continued to crunch baits, turn and cruise
past us in a seemingly endless display of raw power and grace.
After about thirty minutes of this you begin to understand
the seemingly mindless poetic dribble you once heard from
Jacques Cousteau as a kid. Your inner voice changes subtly
from American to French “Maitre De” and says “see
zeh magnificent greaht white,
its silky flanks glimmering in zeh suhn, mahnkind is here
for but a moment of zeh animals
lifetime, we are but interlopers
in the predators day”.
Yup.
The day continued on with sharks coming and going, the
Kelly Brothers were always the first in and last out, snapping
endless rolls of film and video. One diver came on deck with
a deep frown holding his video camera tentatively. I enquired
as to the frown on such a perfect shark day, he replied, “ I
ran out of video tape and all
I have left is this tape of my sisters graduation, I am thinking
about using it”,
what do you say to that one?
The next three days on site
were a mixed bag; we never had fewer than two great whites
on site. Day four saw another full stack. At the end of
day four, divers
had abandoned the cages early; they sat unused as the fading sun heralded our
return to San Diego that night. Most divers, exhausted from 4 days on board
were enjoying a beer in the galley and reviewing moments caught on tape. Sharks
who had “tasted” our cages, others who came up for hang baits so
quickly they left the water briefly only to splash down like Humpback whales.
There was even a clip of me battling a 60 pound Yellowfin Tuna with fishing
pole in hand on the bow only to have it neatly bitten in half by a 15 foot
white shark as it slid effortlessly from underneath the boat. You had to give
that shark credit, it knew when an easy meal was available.
Isla Guadalupe remains one of the best adventures I have
done in a long time, memories of great whites, and new friends
are still fresh months later. Recently I took my girlfriend
out to a French restaurant, I had to suppress the urge to
ask our waiter to say, “ see zeh mahgificent greaht
white, it’s silky flanks”…one of these
days though!
Isla de Guadalupe is the last pristine hold out for pacific Great Whites, it's
discovery and relative ease in which divers can view these animals in 100ft
visibility is changing the common notion that divers can find them primarily
in South African or Australian waters
Patric Douglas
www.sharkdiver.com
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