White sharks in Guadalupe

White sharks in Guadalupe

After one night in San Diego, we continued with the Great White Shark Express. We passed the Mexican border control in Tijuana and continued to the port of Ensenada where we eagerly boarded the Nautilus Explorer. The crew showed us our cabins, offered sushi and bubbles before we cast off and set course to see white sharks at Guadalupe Island. A 22 hour trip so we had plenty of time to review our cameras and tell each other diving adventures. 

When we awoke the next morning, the sun's rays flashed across the mirror-like surface of the water. Today did Pacific truly deserving of its name. Safety briefing and instructions on how tomorrow's dive would go, were on today's agenda. At sunset, surrounded by low clouds, we saw Guadalupe rising from the horizon. As we got closer, we were escorted the last bit by dolphins and sea lions. During the time that the anchor was dropped, the staff started preparing tomorrow's cages and we felt how the smell of the evening's dinner spread over the boat. Tomorrow I was going down to a depth of 7 meters and my plans were to work with a zoom lens.

Time to jump into the cage

06:00, alarm clock rang, had a light breakfast before pulling on the wetsuit. My expectations for the day were high when I was sent down into the deep cage which had limited space. When the sharks came up from the depths, they approached the cage very carefully before disappearing into the depths, speeding towards the surface and picking up the tuna prey. The hours ticked by and since I had limited space to move I had to work with small margins and constantly try to figure out how the sharks would behave and from which direction they would come. I ate a late lunch in a wetsuit, because I wanted to quickly get back into the cage.

After dinner the crew gave a lecture on how to identify sharks. From our photos, we could see that most of today's sharks were well-known visitors. The next day, the cages did not enter the water until after lunch. It was due to strong winds after a storm that passed near Guadalupe. That meant poor visibility and no sharks.

Shark action

It was already day 4 and the penultimate morning of the trip. We anchored in the bay below Monkey Face Mountain. My camera was loaded with an extreme wide angle and my expectations for taking my best shots were high. For the first few hours the visibility was not so good and it was relatively calm, just a few great white sharks swimming by and hundreds of small fish obscuring the view at the surface. Suddenly, two sharks approached the bait. Visibility was now better and focusing on the two sharks I didn't notice more approaching.

When I took my eyes off the camera, I counted at least 7 circling around the cages. Suddenly, as if on a given signal, the sharks sped towards the bait. It was absolutely teeming with sharks. I watched as the smaller sharks ducked away. The water boiled perfectly as they in cascades of small fish took the bait.

Time to travel home

During the trip back to Ensenada, I went through my photos, excited to see if I had succeeded in choosing lenses and camera settings. I was satisfied with the result. The zoom lens worked well when visibility was limited and the extreme wide angle lens had caught all the white sharks in Guadalupe very close to the dive cage.

Text and photo by: Scuba Travel Ambassador Tomas Jansson

Text, video and photos with © approval from Scuba Travel ambassador Tomas Jansson