Guadalupe Island, Mexico

I just returned home from Guadalupe Island, Mexico where I spent a few days photographing great white sharks, so I thought I’d tell you about it.

Guadalupe Island lies one hundred fifty miles offshore of the Pacific coast of Mexico, south of San Diego and WNW of Punta Eugenia on the Baja California peninsula. The island is large, ninety-eight square miles in area and twenty-two miles long, and environmentally isolated, since it is surrounded by water as deep as twelve thousand feet between the island and the mainland of Mexico.

Guadalupe Island’s placement between temperate and subtropical area results in an interesting mix of species in its waters. Oceanic currents bath Guadalupe Island and its marine life includes marine mammals such as dolphins, pilot whales, elephant and fur seals, and pelagic fish such as oceanic whitetip sharks, and blue fin and yellow fin tuna. The coastline supports many coastal species as well, including garibaldi, parrotfish, triggerfish, butterflyfish, lobster and various invertebrate reef creatures. Of course, the waters surrounding the island also are the home of a large population of great white sharks, estimated to be as many as two-hundred, which is why I was there.

When I tell people that I’m going somewhere to go diving in a cage to see great white sharks, they always think that it must be very dangerous and exciting. I can tell that they must watch National Geographic Explorer or the Discovery Channel. The reality is that the film crew was on location for probably six weeks getting enough footage for a twenty minute segment on television.

For each dive at Guadalupe Island, I spent fifteen or twenty minutes just getting dressed. First I put on my L.L. Bean long underwear. My polartec fleece jumpsuit came next. Then I struggled into my dry suit, always requiring help to close the zipper (which runs from shoulder to shoulder across my back). Once in my dry suit, I put on a harness and ankle weights containing fifty pounds of lead. Finally, I put on my neoprene hood and my mask and I was ready to get into the cage.

The popular perception is that diving with great white sharks is really dangerous. It can be, but to me it’s not the sharks that are dangerous. I think the scary part is getting into the cage wearing fifty pounds of lead. If I were to fall into the water all suited up and wearing fifty pounds of lead, I’d drop like a rock to the bottom, several hundred feet below. And then there are other risks as well, hypothermia, for example, from spending long hours in the not so balmy, 68°F, water.

You see, once in the cage, I sit in the cold, blue water staring into the void waiting for a shark to come to the cage. I often have to wait for hours for brief moments of excitement. Sometimes the sharks come; sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they come, but swim by in the distance; tantalizing me with their presence and disappointing me with their coyness. Other times they come close but the water is too murky for photography. And sometimes they come close, the water is clear and blue and everything is just right.

In July, in Africa, the water was green and the encounters with the sharks were limited, at best. This past week, I was fortunate and experienced a large number of great white sharks, up close and personal, in beautiful and clear blue water, as the attached photos pretty well demonstrate.

This dive started slowly and there was little action for the first half of the dive. Then a couple of sharks came by and began to aggressively pursue the tuna carcasses hung from the back of the boat as bait. The sharks’ first few approaches were very close to the cage I was in, and since I was in the “pole” position, the outside corner of the cage nearest to the bait, I was treated to some very close action.

Before this trip, I had always believed that great white sharks had cold, zombie-like, black eyes, altogether fitting with their reputation as cold-blooded, ravenous eating machines. But if you look closely at the attached images, you’ll see a very distinct pupil in the eye. This certainly makes me feel much more emotionally connected to the sharks than before. Okay, not really. But when a fifteen foot long, three thousand pound great white shark is coming straight at you in the water, believe me; they certainly get your attention, even if not your empathy.