Great White Shark Diving

Since Geoff posted the shark video with JB accompaniment, I will relate this true story of real shark dives.

My business is involved with supporting local charter boats. One of the things they do is take a load of passengers to Guadalupe Island off Northern Baja California, Mexico, for dives with Great Whites. It is about 250 miles Southwest of San Diego.

They use cages tied alongside the boat for the divers to enter and observe the sharks. Guadalupe Island teems with Great Whites and it is common to have several swimming around the boat in the 12 to 20 foot size. The divers take videos while they are in the cages. Many of the divers complained that the viewing ports in the cages were too small and obstructed the camera angles. The operators decided to make the ports a bit bigger to accomodate the customers wishes. This brings us to the story.

Three years ago, on one of the diving trips, the boat had a nice group of sharks circling around and the divers, in groups of three, began their adventure. There were four sharks swimming about, 3 of substantial size including one monster called "One Eyed Sally" which is about 22 feet and 3000 lbs, and a small one about 6-8 feet and maybe 400 lbs. The crew use a whole tuna on a rope to entice them close to the cage. The small shark became very frisky and agressive, trying to eat the bait which the crew would jerk out of its reach each time it tried to take a bite. Finally, the shark went for the filming diver in the cage through the view port. The view port was large enough for the shark to get its nose and mouth in up to it's dorsal fin and it rammed itself into the diver hitting him in the middle of his chest and pinning him against the back of the cage with its nose, snapping all the while, but unable to get a bite. The shark then tried to get out of the hole but it had become wedged and stuck, so it started thrashing around violently. This got Sally very excited and she came up and grabbed the tail of the small shark and began thrashing around as well. This caused a great strain on the tether ropes that attached the cage to the boat and they parted, allowing the cage to drift away,with the three divers inside and the sharks now in a feeding frenzy trying to bite through the cage and get the divers. After a bit of panic, the crew launched a skiff and towed the cage back to the boat after the big sharks had eaten the small one. The only injury was the diver that got pinned, who had a large bruise on his sternum from the nose of the shark. I believe the wet suits of the three divers needed flushing too.

Ready for this Geoff???

Rick