Fossilstardragon: Destiny By Choice, Guadalupe 2016

Are you SURE you want this? The universe kept asking me, as if it was a question that related to something way bigger than another cage diving trip to Mexico.

The trip was set to leave the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the day my family was scheduled to fly home from Ohio, where we were to spend Thanksgiving with our daughter, Quinlan and her new fiance, Joel. I asked Tom if I could fly straight in to San Diego and he made it happen for me. I arrived that Saturday night with a suitcase full of clothes meant for a cold climate and had decided to not bring my wetsuit because it would take up so much space. The Islander would have a wetsuit for me.

I arrived at Pizza Nova and faced the shark crowd head on. I hugged the people I knew, introduced myself to the newbies and saved my hug for Alan for last.

We all boarded the boat at 10PM and got ready for the debrief from Jimi, the Divemaster. Alan had asked that all of us who were returning keep to ourselves that the trip last year was cut short due to the weather, as if that meant anything. Life is like that. It can't be predicted or controlled. It must have come as quite a surprise to everyone when Jimi alerted us to what was happening. There were six foot swells all the way to Guadalupe. No boats were leaving the harbor. Jimi suggested that we wait 48 hours and try to depart on Monday night instead. Our dive days would be cut from two and a half to one and a half, but it seemed to be the only safe option. Again, I was in GO WITH THE FLOW mode, so I was fine with it, in fact, I saw it as an opportunity to go home for one night and regroup.

In the pre-dawn darkness the next morning, I left the Islander and got a taxi to the train station. I took the Amtrak surfliner back to Santa Barbara where I re-packed my suitcase down to a duffle bag, I greeted my pets, spent an evening with my family and departed the next morning for San Diego. The thought crossed my mind to just not go back. It was only money, after all, but something inside me really felt the urge to return to the boat.

We headed out at 10 PM into four foot swells. I stayed in my bunk most of the time, rising only to vomit or hydrate with watered down sprite. It was a bad time for me. The trip to Guadalupe was 30 hours and this time it was 30 hours of a boat tossing us around like beanbags. At one point when I was trying to exit my bunk, which ran from bow to stern, I got tossed and my left ring finger got hyperextended. That injury would prove to be a problem when it came time to get into a wetsuit.

I awoke to the calm waters of Guadalupe and knew my seasickness would subside while we were at the island. I had the same sense of awe and joy as the first White Shark was enticed to the boat as the cages were dropped into the water. The first group of eight suited up and carefully descended into the cages.

After about forty minutes I decided to start wrestling into my borrowed wetsuit. I knew the Islander had thicker wetsuits than the one I had shivered in the previous year. What I didn't realize was that the wetsuits were all cut for men, so, although I had a very large size to shimmy into, I got gridlocked at the region of my ass. I was handicapped with my swelling ring finger and had to resort to using liquid soap as a lubricant and asking for help from someone. It was like trying to get a toddler into a snow suit. To add to my misery, when it came time for me to pop into my cage, I had to dawn a very serious weight belt. The thicker wetsuit made me very buoyant and although I had extra weight, it wasn't enough to keep me from bobbing like a cork in the shark cage. My feet refused to meet the bottom of the cage. At that moment, a very large female shark by the name of Bryn was swimming around not paying much attention to my arm that was wrapped around the outside of the bars.

When my rotation was up, I climbed out of the cage and promptly fell into the net connecting the cages to the boat. It was that damned weight belt. I was content to observe the shark action from topside for the rest of the day. We had some great moments.

There was one epic moment worth describing. Every time a tuna part was tossed into the water to attract a shark, sea birds, mostly gulls, would land to try and steal bits of the fish until it drifted below the surface. There were always eight to ten birds ready for a free meal. One of the sharks seemed annoyed by this and buzzed a bird, which cleared them out for a bit but they were soon back. Then, this happened. This footage was captured by a very patient, Ralph Collier. I tried to load the video but was unsuccessful so here are a few stills of the incident:

Every shark has its own personality. The White Shark researchers who return to Guadalupe every week throughout the Fall months have identified and named many of the sharks so that behaviors and migration patterns can be more easily shared*. The shark in question was Luka, and he was fed up with the pesky seabirds. Not only did Luka choose the bird over the bait but spit the bird out a few seconds after capturing it in its mouth. The bird did not survive. The other birds got the message though and disappeared for a while.

That evening, we all rehashed the day.

From the Left: Me, Matt, Alexa, Ralph Collier, Blaine, Brian, Wilson and Alan in front.

See the ball on the table? That's Wilson. Wilson Chumley. He travels with Alan, who never had kids. One of the promises I made, when coming to Guadalupe Island in 2016, was that Wilson would be my cagemate. Although Wilson was on the 2015 Guadalupe trip, he never made his way into the cage. I think Alan was too serious about photographing the sharks to really mess around with Wilson, who was an undeniable handful.

By the fourth hour of cage diving on the second day, it suddenly occurred to me that I was running out of time to take Wilson in the cage. Blaine, who was in Alan's rotation group, offered me his spot. I "quickly" suited up, using soap again and the arms of my fellow travelers to shimmy into the very tight sausage casing wetsuit. Without pausing to think too much, I grabbed Wilson, tucked him under my arm and hopped into the cage that Alan was in. If nothing else, I am a person who keeps their promises.

Soon after this picture was taken, we departed Guadalupe for Ensenada and finally San Diego. When we arrived in San Diego, it was 10:30 PM the next day. We all had to leave the Islander because it was on a quick turnaround back to Guadalupe with a group of Discovery Chanel film makers creating content for the following summer's Shark Week.

I found a hotel within walking distance and made my way there without pausing too long to say goodbye.

to be continued.....