November brings great white sharks to Mexico

May 15, 2006 - November usually brings to mind visions of Thanksgiving, voting ballots and recovering from Halloween candy. However in the world of Great White sharks, November is their Spring Break. Isla Guadalupe, 210 miles off the coast of Mexico, has become the worldwide recognized dive destination for an unprecedented number of Great White sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) and exceptional opportunities for divers seeking encounters with these misunderstood denizens of the deep.
After four years of solid operations at the Isla Guadalupe dive site, the Shark Diver team, lead by dedicated shark specialists in conjunction with
U.C Davis and CICIMAR's research teams, have noted several unique seasonal shark patterns.
"Something exciting always happens in November," notes eco-adventurer and Shark Diver CEO Patric Douglas. "For the past several years we see many
juvenile and mid-sized animals from September through late October. But when the seasonal temperature shifts, the real giants appear!"
The giants in question are massive female Great White sharks that appear in large numbers later in the shark season. In early November when water temperatures dip several degrees lower, larger breeding-aged female Great White sharks stalk the waters at Isla Guadalupe looking for something the Shark Diver research team is trying to discover.
"We have data showing these sharks actively stalking the small Guadalupe Fur Seals (pups and adults) early in the shark season," says Douglas. "By November these pups are quite big and begin to play offshore, which is the equivalent of ringing the dinner bell for females who need to consume mass quantities of food to fuel up for the winter and for breeding season."
There are few places in the world that feature consistent sightings and interactions with Great White sharks as Isla Guadalupe. Douglas speculates that divers' best chance for seeing sharks as long as 18 feet (or more) is in November. As he and his team have discovered with past Great White shark diving off the coast of California in Ano Nuevo and off the Oregon coastline, sharks of that size don't just wander around aimlessly - they are destination animals, just like any migratory species.
To see Great White Sharks in action in November, call Shark Diver at 888.405.3268 or visit www.sharkdiver.com to book your trip today.
About Shark Diver
Since 2002, Shark Diver has introduced divers of all ages to extraordinary world of cage diving with Great White Sharks. In the last few years, Shark Diver has expanded to offer cage diving trips with Tiger Sharks in the Bahamas, Giant Squid encounters, Whales Sharks in Honduras, as well as deep-dive submarine trips to see Giant Sharks in Roatan. CEO Patric Douglas is a natural born eco-adventurer, who started his career in the U.S. Virgin Islands in hotel tourism, spent two years as a tour guide in Vietman, Bali, Hong Kong, Australia/New Zealand and Latin America, served as an outdoor reporter for CBS in San Francisco, and founded an outdoor adventure club called "Absolute Adventures" which continues to thrive in San Francisco today. For the past several years, Douglas has dedicated his life to providing educational and interactive experiences for clients through shark diving. In addition, Shark Diver is partially funding efforts to preserve.