Exploring a world without fences…
one story at a time.
We just posted a new trip report for our first trip of the 2022 wildlife travel season. Mako and blue sharks off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Well I should stop calling it a mako trip, since the makos did not show up this year. We did have some solid blue shark action which was really great. Anyway, here is the link to the trip report, hope you enjoy.
January has always meant Tigers and Great Hammerheads to us. For the past 7 , or 8? Maybe 9 years (don’t remember exactly when we started, it’s been a while.), we have run our annual trip to Tiger Beach for tiger sharks, and over the past 5 seasons great hammerheads. It has been an amazing time of year for us, with both highs and lows, because you never know what you are going to get when it comes to the weather. Some seasons we get perfect conditions, other seasons we get crap weather with challenging swells. The one thing that we have been fortunate to do is dive with big tigers and great hammerheads on ALL our January trips. Not that we haven’t on our October and December trips, because thankfully we have. But January is during the Bahamas winter season and you just never know what you are going to get. We kicked off 2019 with two back to back trips and here are a few images from our time spent here. I do hope you enjoy. Thanks again to our friends who joined us on these trips, you guys are amazing and we couldn’t do this without you. BIG HUG my friends.
Trip one. January 19 - 26, 2019.
Trip Two January 27 - February 3, 2019
Our December Tiger Shark trip has been a crazy, scary, fun ride so far. It is only day 3 and I have had several gut checks. The tigers have been on fire. This morning we had 6 players come in. Emma, Freckles, Maui, Tequila, a new big shark we haven't named yet and of course our freaking pain in the ass, Jitterbug.
Jitterbug is turning out to be a real nightmare of a shark. I was hoping she would of settled down by now, but she hasn’t. The thing is, she is not just a jerk to the feeders, she is also a pain to the other tigers and lemons. Today she bit one of the lemons on the dorsal fin and I watched the lemon turn and slam her on her side, pushing JB, up and away. I am Hopeful as she gets older, she will settle down. But, I highly doubt it... She is just a crazy shark.
Jitterbug and a bull shark
It has been a great week for species. When we arrived at Fish Tales yesterday, we had 4 bull sharks hanging around, which is a new thing. We normally do not have bull sharks here. But the way these sharks are behaving, it looks like the bulls are here to stay. So we will see what that turns into. Often when a few bulls show up, it won’t be long before they invite a bunch of their friends here and long term, that will be a bad thing.
We also had Patches the great hammerhead show up here today. Which was awesome. She is one of the Bimini hammerheads, but has decided she likes it here at TB, so she has returned again for second season. I do hope she stays, it always makes for better dives. If she decides to hang out permanently, and with the addition of bull sharks, Tiger Beach will have easily become, the all time greatest shark dive in the world. 3 marquee species on one dive... Just incredible.
Patches the Great Hammerhead. Image by Victor Osipov
We finished up the trip with time spent at Bimini, seeking out great hammerheads. Over a three day period we had five different hammerheads visit us. Two of them I recognized from previous trips, the others were new to me. One of the hammerheads had a badly broken jaw (fishermen). It did a quick pass, so I didn’t get a really good look at it. The only thing I could confirm was that it was a male shark. I was hoping it was not Spartacus, a shark I have known for a while. It was hard to tell from the distance, but it had dark brown skin, like Spartacus. The other male we frequently see here, Anchor, has more of a buck skin color to him.
Over all, it was an amazing trip and an amazing way to end the 2017 season. I was excited to see my old friends, Emma and Tequila back at Tiger Beach. They safely made it through another season. We still have not seen Princess or Hook yet, which makes me worry, they are really late to arrive. If they show up together in January, it will sort of reinforce my theory that tigers travel in twos, and that Hook and Princess are travel partners. More importantly than that, I just want to know these two beauties make it back safely to Tiger Beach.
You just never know what to expect from Guadalupe Island. Of course it is almost guaranteed you will see great whites, even though I hate to use that word when it comes to wild animal encounters, because there is never any guarantees. But with the amount of white sharks in the area during this time of year, the chances of encounters are very high. Plus, that is why I always choose September for the month we visit Guadalupe. The sharks are in full force.
Of course the big question is always, how many sharks will we see? I have had some lean seasons out there, where we only saw a few white sharks, during our three day trip. Don't get me wrong, having the chance to see even one white shark is still an honor. Because any trip where you have great whites hanging around is always a great thing. But when you have experienced 15 plus white sharks on an expedition, you realize how special this place can be. And that is what I want for everyone, opportunities for our friends who travel with us to see as many white sharks as possible in the short time that we are there.
Well this season, we had an EPIC trip. It was an amazing group of people, and we had white shark, after white shark, show up to our boat. In fact, today I got the email from the observers/researchers that were aboard our boat. They recorded 24 different white sharks that had visited us this season. 24 is a new record high for us. 24 WHITE SHARKS! That is a lot of white sharks during a three day period.
Last season we had 21 different white sharks visit us. Which was a new record for us then. Sadly, it was only two days, we lost the third to a hurricane barreling down on us. Who knows what that extra day would of brought? Of course we will never know, but it is nice knowing there are a lot of white sharks in the area.
So back to this season. Upon arrival, we had sharks within minutes of dropping our anchor. Once the sharks arrived it was non-stop all day, the sharks were on fire. They were breaching on the hang baits all day, with a lot of close passes by the cages, which was great for everyone. Those encounters provided a lot of opportunities for every type of photo and video our friends were hoping to capture. Face shots, side shots, multiple sharks, breaching shots. Most were half breaches, but there were a few full breaches as well. A bonus added to the shark action was; the seas were calm, the sun was out and the visibility was amazing. It was a dream.
I even had time to break out the drone and record the whites breaching on the hang baits as well. It was crazy. Guadalupe Island delivered this season and the encounters were everything that we all hoped for. I guess it is good that you never know what you are going to get when you show up to a place, because, surprise is the spice of life. Makes me anxious to find out what is in store for us next season?
