October 18, 2013
This post will share a thrilling San Diego cageless shark-diving experience, and show you how to sign up for one.
If you paid big bucks to travel to beautiful San Diego, or maybe you pay through the nose year-round to live here (the rent/ mortgage/ power/ water/ gas hikes make me want to cry!), then you may as well pay for one more thing that you can’t get anywhere else: a professionally-run, CAGELESS shark dive with mako sharks, blue sharks, or maybe even both… and a great white shark sighting wouldn’t be unheard of.
The old man and I often like to gift each other experiences more often than stuff (and much of the stuff we do get tends to enable great experiences, like snorkeling gear), so for his 2013 birthday I decided to get him an experience he would never forget: a cageless shark dive.
When you’re considering taking part in an activity that inherently carries a decent amount of risk, you want to make sure that the people leading you through that experience are as professional and knowledgeable as possible. If they also turn out to be wonderful people to be around – well, that would just be icing on the cake.
Kyle and Nick come highly recommended as the absolute experts in this unique field of Ocean Adventuring. “Do Something Different” and book your next adventure through their stunning website here: SDExpeditions.
We powered nine beautiful miles out to sea over what is basically 2000 feet of underwater canyon. A lot of pelagic (inhabiting the upper layers of deep ocean) species pass through here, including migrating whales – but we were looking for The Fastest Shark Species On Earth: the Mako shark.
The video I shot (above) was taken on a chest-mounted GoPro so you can see that the sharks made some good approach passes, trying to figure out what we were.
Between passes, we goofed around or had out photo taken by decorated underwater photographer Kyle McBurnie.
New friends Janell and Mark captured some beautiful stills of these incredibly intelligent hunters, which happen to have the largest brain-to-body-size ratio of any shark, and have demonstrated impressive critical reasoning and social skills.
If you’re really interested in diving with these beautiful lamnids, watch this fabulous documentary about cageless mako diving here, and then book your adventure with SDExpeditions.
Happy diving! xo
