Guadalupe Island Shark Diving

Pre-Trip

About a year ago, an old friend of mine (we dated in college) and I were about to hop in a plane to hit wine country, when my mom called to see if I’d be interested in joining her on a “bucket list” trip - shark diving off the coast of Guadalupe Island, Mexico. My friend is hugely obsessed with sharks. It was fate. We signed up for the adventure immediately, which took place about two weeks ago. The trip was arranged by Y-Kiki Divers, on the Nautilus Liveaboards’ Explorer.

Dive Gear

I’m a PADI Advanced Open Water diver (and have been since the early 1990s(!?)), but haven’t been out in decades. (Bought some new equipment about 15 years ago - a never used BC, a dive computer that, IIRC, has an RS-232 serial interface...) But I didn’t need much of that. I did pick up a new mask from the local dive shop, along with some 3mm wetsuit gloves, and my old boots still fit and were in good shape. The excursion company provided everything else (rented a 7mm wetsuit along with thicker gloves and a hood, though I only ever wore the wetsuit). If I had it to do over again, I’d buy and bring my own wetsuit, though, see below.

Camera Gear

I have a Sony α6000 mirrorless camera that I wanted to equip for under water photography. Figured it would be cheaper and less bulky than fitting out my Nikon D5100 DSLR. I ended up bringing:
(I’m still boycotting Amazon, but that’s a rant for another day. At any rate, eBay to the rescue!)

I had three batteries, three fast SD cards, and an old MacBook Air I’d wiped of almost everything, and hung a 256GB flash drive off of. It was enough.




(I taped the flash down with masking tape to prevent it from popping up accidentally. We had more than enough light.)

Internet

The Nautilus Explorer is equipped with a KVH satellite Internet system, that was $100 per device to use. They recommend it be used only for low bandwidth applications (like WhatsApp), and not for, e.g., social media. It worked most of the time, and it was definitely slow, but usable. I used very low bandwidth versions of sites, including:

The Trip

San Diego

My friend and I flew from Zamperini Field in Torrance to San Diego International, where we parked with Signature. We got in around 11 am on the 27th; the rest of our group came in on Southwest about 10:30 a.m. It was a crystal clear day, but we flew IFR (and made a visual approach), both so I could not have to worry about navigating the relatively complex Bravo airspace around San Diego VFR, and so ATC could work us into the arrival flow into SAN easily (which they did; we were vectored out on the visual to slot in behind an arriving regional jet, easy peasy).


We headed straight over to the marina at Point Loma where Nautilus had a trailer setup for us to stow our luggage, and then headed upstairs to a suite that formed their temporary base of operations. We checked in on their iPads (confirming passport number, PADI certificate number, DAN insurance policy number, etc - dive insurance was required; DAN is cheap, I think I paid $129 for the mid-tier coverage). They ended up not having a wetsuit to fit me (I’m 6'2"), so they asked us to come back before 5 pm.

We wandered down the way to Point Loma Seafoods, where my mom and her friend were having lunch. Shrimp tacos, a sushi roll, and a glass of chablis later, we still had some time to kill, so we grabbed a couple of glasses of wine, beer, whatever, at Pizza Nova, where we sat with an ocean view. Back to Nautilus, they had a wetsuit that fit me like a glove, though it was threadbare in places and had generally seen better days. (The other suits they had there were brand new and very nice.)

With rental gear squared away, we joined up with the rest of the St. Louis folks for a previously scheduled dinner at Jimmy’s Famous American Tavern. More alcohol was consumed. Obvi.

After that, we headed back over to Nautilus, where we picked up our complimentary water bottles, visas, etc., and boarded the bus about 7:30 p.m.


Once on the bus it was a relatively short trip to the border, where everyone had to disembark and go through on foot, hoofing our luggage and dive gear. That part I definitely could have done without. If I go on another Nautilus trip (they have non-shark trips to the same island, etc), I might fly into Tijuana and clear customs there, or, really ideally, fly directly to Ensenada (MMES is a point of entry airport).

Safely on the Mexican side of the border, we climbed back into the bus and settled in for a ~2 hour drive down to Ensenada. My friend and I shared a pair of headphones and watched a couple of episodes of Orange is the New Black on my iPad (I’d used Netflix’ ‘download episodes’ functionality ahead of the trip); everyone else had the option of watching a weirdly contrasted, pixelated copy of Gladiator on drop-down Blaupunkt video screens.

Arriving at the marina in Ensenada, we had to stop while some private security contractor boarded the bus and reviewed everyone’s passports, for some reason, and then it was on to the ship. The Nautilus people loaded our luggage onto the Explorer (and down into our staterooms) while we were met with glasses of sparkling wine and nibbles (including sushi). The captain gave us a quick briefing on everything, pointed out the schedule, and we were on our own.

I had some work I needed to get done on the trip, so I first setup a personal hotspot on my phone and took advantage of AT&T MX 4G coverage while we had it, downloading a few critical emails from an  Outlook web interface on my laptop.

We had one of the staterooms in the bottom of the ship, a twin bed arrangement with a porthole and small storage unit between the bunks, and storage for suitcases, and shelves, under the bunks. The staterooms were equipped with a tiny toilet/sink closet, and a shower (the ship makes its own fresh water, and there was no limit on, e.g., hot water showers - though as is typical of a dive live-aboard, not many showers were taken!). My initial reaction was that I wish I’d ponied up a couple hundred bucks more for one of the suites upstairs, but ultimately it would have been wasted money; we were only down below to sleep, and there was plenty of room in the salon or the dining room to spread out with a laptop. 


The rooms were equipped with LED strip lighting kinda like this, which was set to a blue-green color when we arrived. Cool? Except, we couldn’t get it to turn off. (The remote was either bad, or the battery was, either way, it was non-responsive.) A crewmember had to remove part of the ceiling and physically unplug it from the 110V outlet to get the lights off, but we didn’t get to that until the next day. Our first night, then, was well lit and blue water sailing (with some accompanying motion sickness - both my mom and I, and we never get sea sick). Not very restful. Actually kind of miserable.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Sailing to Guadalupe Island

The ship left Ensenada about midnight, and arrived at Guadalupe Island about 7pm on the 28th (the captain thought it would be about a 20 hour trip). I slept through breakfast and ate a small lunch (buffet style, shrimp and veggie wraps, roasted eggplant, carrots, and green beans, and a salad), but was definitely not handling the trip as well as I’d expected. (There’s an airport on Guadalupe Island, but somehow I don’t see getting to fly directly there; the whole island is closed, accessible only with permission from the Mexican government.) 

We had a few more briefings (diving, ship safety) and a “muster on the rear deck with your life jackets on” drill.

We dropped anchor in about 220' of water in a sheltered cove (?) off the northwest side of the island, with smooth water and great weather for our ~4 day stay there.

Dinner (served to us by the crew) was roasted chicken with garlic roasted potatoes and carrots, a caesar salad, and apple strudel (that contained pine nuts, so I had to skip dessert).

Diving

Each day of diving (three in total) were pretty much the same. Every certified SCUBA diver had three trips down in one of the two submersible cages (at a depth of about 8 meters, ~24'), per a set schedule (but no one complained if you grabbed an “OPEN” slot or mixed things up). There were also cages that stayed at the surface, tethered to the boat, for which you did not have to be a certified diver (though you’d still be breathing compressed air through a regulator hooked up to a “hookah”), and which anyone could use at any time, if there was room (there was always room). The surface cages each held (4) people at a time, and the submersible cages were three guests and a dive master. The dives were 45 minutes each.


My friend and I ended up diving a couple of times with Atlanta radio personality Spencer Graves, and couldn’t have asked for a better dive buddy.

Sharks

Oh, were there sharks! The first day, it was almost overkill. We had the bay to ourselves, and seeing multiple sharks together at the same time was not unusual. I have way too many photos to go through and color correct, etc. I’ll get to that sooner than later. The best photos (in my opinion) were down in the submersible cages, where the sharks would drift in out of the blue (visibility was about 35-40' I’m guessing) and then silently swim out of sight. Up top by the surface, the sharks typically came much closer, but there was so much else going on (light scatter from the sunlight on the surface; other fish; particles in the water) that getting a good photo was rare. But for in your face action, the surface was where to be - there was one instance of a shark ramming the cage! And they swam close enough, often, you could reach out to touch one, if only we weren’t wisely prohibited from sticking a limb, head, or any part of our camera equipment out of the cage.

On day two, the Nautilus ship Undersea took up a position nearby in the bay, and our shark sightings declined a bit (still multiple encounters per dive, but the drop in frequency was perceptible), and on the third day, the sharks’ attention was divided between three ships as the Nautilus Belle Amie joined us. By the third day, though, fatigue had started to set in a bit, and my friend and I skipped our last dive.

The ship’s crew took turns “wrangling” sharks with hunks of frozen tuna tossed in on lines and held up by flotation devices. They were careful to keep the sharks from snagging the tuna (didn’t want to disrupt normal feeding patterns), though once or twice a shark managed to swim away with a mouthful.

Photography

That little Sony did an awesome job. Others with $15,000+ setups were able to get better shots, but for my money, my <$1,000 gear did just fine. I haven’t found all the great shots yet, and I’m still figuring out color correction, etc., but here’s a taste:





I was originally shooting Continuous - Hi, but switched to Medium as I found the camera was spending a lot of time writing to the card. I don’t think I missed out on any great shots I would have gotten with a higher frequency burst, and it definitely went easier on my somewhat limited storage. I mostly shot in shutter priority mode (1/250), ISO set to 100; about 1/3 of the shots the camera chided me that F2.8 was as wide as it could go, but the rest of the time it seemed comfortable in the 2.8-4.0 range. I shot exclusively with the Sigma 19mm prime lens. Other settings: I alternated between under water auto and flash auto for white balance; neither seemed to make much of a difference. I shot in RAW, and had the viewfinder / display panel set to display with the viewfinder turned off (since it’s unusable with the underwater housing anyway). I used single point autofocus (center), and about 1/2 of my shots were in focus enough to be worthwhile.

Diving

The water was a pretty consistent 19°C (about 66°F). I was fine with a 7mm wetsuit and 3mm gloves and no hood. My friend skipped the hood and gloves most of the time. Some were in dry suits. Everyone went in with weight harnesses (my friend switched to a standard weight belt, which they were happy to set up for her), which the crew assisted you into and out of. The crew would also assist you as you climbed down into the cage, passing you a regulator (which were kept in buckets of Listerine between dives) and handing you your camera once you were ready to grab it.

The Boat

Specially setup for diving. The main deck was just above the waterline and had a platform on the back (with two hot water showers) from which you got ready to go into the cages. The two “surface” cages stayed tethered to the stern, and the two “submersible” cages hung off cranes on the port and starboard side. Both back corners had stanchions onto which the extended “shark wrangling” platforms were attached while we were anchored.

Moving towards the bow was a prep area with benches (everyone grabbed a black “milk crate” for stowing their dive gear between dives) and a central “camera table” with dozens of 110V outlets. There was a “no food, drink, or liquid” rule for the camera table, which was much appreciated. Also in this area was a head (bathroom) and the dryer for the towels.

Down a staircase from this deck was a narrow, dim hallway off of which were the staterooms, which were small but comfortable. Each had a porthole, a climate control panel for an HVAC vent specific to that stateroom, and a couple of 110V outlets (though we were asked not to leave anything - phones, cameras, etc - charging in the rooms when we weren’t present, as it was a fire risk). Each had life jackets for the occupants.

Most of the rest of the main deck was occupied by the enclosed, carpeted areas (no wetsuits or wet bodies):
  • The salon, where we mostly hung out, equipped with a desktop computer, a large curved LCD TV, the bar, and a bunch of couches and chairs.
  • The dining room, where we took our meals.
  • The kitchen (a forbidden area).
  • The passage down to the crew quarters.
  • The bow area (also restricted), which had a couple of winches for the anchors, a trash container, and not much else.
Upstairs from the main deck was a deck with a hot tub, that saw a fair amount of use between dives. Probably 12 people could squeeze in at a time, but we never had more than maybe 4-5 at once. Towards the bow on either side of the ship were the upgraded passenger suites, and a staircase up to the sun deck.

The sun deck had deck chairs to catch some sun if you were so inclined, and forward from that was an open air bridge (throttle controls only) and the passage down to the enclosed bridge (nicely equipped with LCD and “steam” engine instruments, sonar, radar, GPS navigation, auto-steering, etc).

It was very comfortable and easily fit our 25 passengers and 11 (12?) crew.

Food

The food was generally quite good, but some of the choices were questionable, and the menu didn’t much seem to track reality. For instance, while we were tantalized with promises of snacks like “smoked brie & honey drizzled apples,” what we got were bowls of M&Ms and pretzels. Some of the entrees didn’t line up with the published menu (day three’s dinner was supposed to be pan seared steak or summersquash rissotto, but it ended up being pasta), and some of the choices were maybe a little too adventurous (the first night of diving ended with “taco night” up on the sun deck, and dessert was a “basil lemon pie” (alternately described as a “key lime basil pie”) that I don’t think anyone cared for - a plain old key lime (no basil) pie would have been much more enthusiastically received).

All that said, the food was generally a cut above what I expect on a live aboard dive boat. A continental breakfast started at 6:30 a.m. every day (same time the surface dive cages opened up), with cereal, toast, muffins and bagels, coffee and orange juice. “Second breakfast” was hot and made to order (eggs your way, omelets, sausage, potatoes, pancakes, waffles), and they’d bring a plate out to you on the dive deck if you didn’t want to shed wetsuits etc. to venture into the dining room. Lunch was buffet style (again, they’d make you a plate if you were diving when lunch was served, or wanted to eat outside), and generally pretty good (wraps, fajitas, salads, etc). Dinner was usually a sit-down, full service affair. The day we arrived at the island, it was that roast chicken breast (there were vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free options); after the first night of diving, tacos; after the second night of diving, salmon or steak (I had the steak, and it was pretty damned good); after the last day of diving (while we were sailing back to Ensenada), pasta.

Drank

They don't allow any outside alcohol on the boat. Domestic (Mexican) beers were $3.75/each from the bar; if I recall correctly imported beers were about a dollar more. A glass of the house Cabernet was $5, and not worth it. I spied a bottle of La Crema Pinot Noir and they poured me a glass. It was only later I found out I’d bought the whole bottle ($38, about 2.5x what you’d pay for the bottle at a supermarket - but I didn’t actually find out the cost until it was time to settle up our bill at the end of the trip, when I paid for the dive rental gear, the Internet access, any merchandise I might have bought from the ship (I didn’t, but people bought shirts, baseball caps, stuffed sharks...), my drinks, the crew’s gratuity ($250-350 per guest is what they recommend), and the port fees ($65 cash; for everything else, you could pay with VISA or MasterCard)). I got my money’s worth. Under one of the sofas in the salon they had a decent collection of mostly California supermarket mid-market Pinot Noir and other varietals, but no wine list. I ended up buying another bottle for dinner the second night (another $38). No complaints. Every day had a “drink special” (taco night, it was a bucket of 6 Mexican beers for $10, other nights had gin and tonic, or strawberry daiquiri, or other options). Last call was 11:30 p.m. (or maybe it was 11:45?), but they said they’d stay later if we were having fun and needed them to.

The Crew

Hard working! Most were Mexican. We had a Captain, Josep (from Barcelona), Mate Lowel (from Santa Barbara, California, and also a Dive Master), Ship’s Engineer Oscar, Chef Filipe, Host Jorge, Hostess Nubia, and Dive Masters Arturo, Mirko, Ronald, Jessie (she was from Switzerland). I may be forgetting someone. I got the sense that this group of passengers (we were 25, mostly on the boat through Y-Kiki, but a few had filled in the empty slots Y-Kiki didn’t fill) wasn’t all that used to being taken care of. About the only hiccup I noticed was the bin of fresh towels once running out (there were towels to be kept up on the dive deck for folks coming out of the water), and we were ‘scolded’ for not putting our wet towels in the appropriate bin when we were done with them. Our rooms were turned down daily and almost everything sort of happened in the background. You’d be asked what you wanted for the hot breakfast (omelets, mmm), what you wanted for dinner and how you wanted it prepared, etc., and then it would just happen. I’m not used to being waited on!

Conclusion

An amazing trip, on a well-appointed boat, to the Right Spot™. An amazing, unforgettable three days of diving with great white sharks!

Comments

  1. Judy of CalienteAugust 9, 2019 at 7:38 PM

    Hi Chris! Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your travel log of the shark diving trip. It pretty much covered Veronyka's rendition, but hers came in fits & starts over her stay here with me. I, too, like the pictures showing the submersible cages with the sharks adjacent. Yours 3 choices are stunning. In closing, thank you so much for taking such good care of my niece & for staying to have lunch together. Love your plane & was so thrilled to see you flying off. With Warm Regards, Judy
    P.S. Your mom's looks super cool & belies her age.

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