Shark diving in Isla Guadalupe, Mexico (Part 2)
Aside from shark diving and deep sea diving, Isla Guadalupe also features other once-in-a-lifetime dives for any enthusiast. It features a population of giant squid that divers may swim with as well as wreck and cave diving.
Isla Guadalupe hosts a species of giant squid in its waters known as the Red Demon squids of Mexico. Growing to over 5 feet long and weighing up to 100 pounds, these deep sea monsters usually live at between 600 and 2,500 feet, but come up near Isla Guadalupe
to feed at night.
Giant Squid dives give divers the opportunity to see these amazing creatures in their own environment. Divers get to see the occasional cannibalistic meal as well as the squid’s rapidly altering their colour to communicate, from deep purplish red to white.
These squid, also known as Humboldt squid, travel in shoals of up to 1,200 squid and can swim at speeds of 24 km/h.
Another diving activity that is very popular among tourists is wreck diving. Aside from Isla Guadalupe, there are many popular wreck diving sites throughout the world, including the famous
Titanic.
In a wreck dive, divers use scuba gear or submersibles to travel below the surface of the water to view the wrecks. Most commonly, scuba gear is used in clear water that has high visibility. Divers have always been attracted to wrecks for many different
reasons. Wrecks eventually become artificial reefs, with a great deal of aquatic life that has inhabited the wreck. They also present mystery to the divers, since most wrecks have an exhilarating or catastrophic history.
Wrecks are usually large structures with many pieces of machinery and moving parts that cannot be closely observed aboard working vessels. Diving wrecks also presents a new level of challenge to scuba divers.
A less common and highly dangerous form of diving is cage-less diving. The first cage-less dive was performed in 1992 by shark diving pioneer Rodney Fox, with his partner and photographer George Askew, along with famous divers Ron and Valerie Taylor.
Shark experts, Askew and the Taylors, were testing their hypotheses, based on years of shark encounters and Askew’s published articles, that Great White sharks had a greatly exaggerated ferocious status than they deserved.
The divers found that the sharks were shy and hard to come within reach of, even though Askew just about lost his camera and arms to a 13 foot Great White shark that jumped onto the dive platform seconds after Askew moved back from it, missing him by a mere
three inches. This first encounter showed that Great Whites are not mindless-eating machines, but can be quite friendly.
Since the pioneering 1992 dive, a few divers have dared to follow in their footsteps, going on cage-less dives and even have touched them underwater and hitched rides on their dorsal fins.
The waters around Isla Guadalupe also feature many caves and underwater crevices that are great for cave diving. Cave diving is a type of technical diving in which scuba gear is used to explore natural and artificial underwater caves, that are at least partially
filled with water. Cave dives require much more experience, skill, and training than normal dives, since there is no escape route in case of emergency.
Many people have died in cave diving accidents, such as insufficient air, getting lost, or going too deep into the cave and are poisoned by compressed air. The procedures and equipment standards for cave diving have become very strict and as a result, deaths
have been greatly reduced.
Typically, first-time certified cave divers embark on cavern diving, which is diving into the cave only as far as natural light reaches. More experienced divers have gone thousands of feet into the cave systems and have survived due to proper training, equipment,
and knowing when they have gone far enough.
Caves are very dangerous places to dive, since some have in-flowing currents that pull divers into the depths of the caves, while others have out-flowing currents that make entry difficult.
Isla Guadalupe, Mexico offers many different diving experiences to divers of all ages. Whether their interest is in sharks, squid, reefs, caves, or wrecks, they will not be disappointed by the plethora of aquatic activities awaiting them in Isla Guadalupe.
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