Guadalupe Island Destination Guide 2019 | Shark Cage Diving
Guadalupe Island is famous for the most feared fish in the ocean, the Great White Shark. You are guaranteed close-encounters with white sharks on America’s Shark Boat or your get a free trip back! We specialize in first time and non certified cage diving and very close white shark encounters. From behind your cage, you will witness white sharks swimming past your shark cage only a few inches from your nose.
Guadalupe Island Marine life Photography
In addition to sharks, you will see White sharks, Great white sharks, and Carcharodon carcharias. You may also occasionally see sea lions (prey), and baitfish (prey for the sea lions), but it’s all about the White sharks. Most sharks can be skittish, don’t use too wide a lens at Guadalupe Island, or too slow of a lens. The 12-24mm or 17-35mm are good choices. Set your strobes on manual, low power – be careful not to blow out their white underbellies.
Getting To Guadalupe Island
The Guadalupe Island is 165 miles (260 km) off the west coast of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula and the boat journey time to the island is 18 to 20 hours, so daytrips from the mainland to visit the sharks are out of the question. Most of the liveaboard trips include 3 or 4 days of white shark cage diving on America’s Shark Boat.
Lens Choices at Guadalupe Island
At Guadalupe Island you can use a 10-17mm fisheye lens for white sharks you know you can get close to, and schooling shots with bait fish. 10-17mm fisheye lenses are generally too wide. Use the 12-24mm rectilinear range for more skittish sharks, and closeup shots. The focal lengths are for cropped-sensor cameras. If shooting full frame, the 17mm – 70mm range is best, especially 17-35mm. Use a fast lens with a maximum aperture of F2.8 or F4 and a constant aperture throughout the range for best shark shot results.
Great White Shark Cage Diving: How it Started
Cage diving with a great white shark at Guadalupe Island, Mexico is an opportunity for everyone, divers and non-divers alike, to get extremely close to these magnificent apex predators. The very first great white shark expedition was in August, 2000 with America’s Shark Boat, it was the trip that launched white shark cage diving as we know if on the west coast.
The very first expedition in 2000 with great white shark diving was incredible and vastly exceeded expectations.
Great White Shark Cage Diving The Experience
Guadalupe Island (Mexico) is the top destination for great white shark encounters. This small volcanic island located in the Pacific 240 kilometers (150 miles) off the west coast of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula outperforms both South Africa and Australia with shark-seeing consistency and watching conditions. Only Guadalupe Island can boast shark viewing in beautiful clear blue water with 125 – 150 foot visibility. We specialize in taking non certified divers, or first time shark divers, into the exciting world of great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) Dive with us and discover hands on shark research and shark conservation at Guadalupe Island.
Shark Diving For Everyone
Our commitment to showcase the incredible world of white sharks with a combination of 18 years of cage diving experience, a cage system designed exclusively for non divers, top notch shark staff and cage diving crews with years of hands on shark experience. We have been cage diving and naming many of the white sharks you’ll be diving with this year. From the incredible 19+ foot Deep Blue, most likely the largest great white shark in the Pacific, to many of our regular white sharks like Scarboard, Lucy, and Mau. These amazing animals have become more than just whites sharks to us as we encounter them year after year – we met Scarboard 16 years ago – they have become our sharky friends.
Let’s go shark cage diving at Guadalupe Island this year!
