Guadalupe Island | Shark Cage Diving Turns 20 | Horizon Charters
Isla Guadalupe, Guadalupe Island or Guadalupe? What’s In a Name?
For shark divers across the globe one little island off the coast of Baja, Mexico has become a mecca for diving with great white sharks. But, what do you call this volcanic rock 220 miles from San Diego, California?
Isla Guadalupe, Guadalupe Island or Guadalupe?
According to Wikipedia, Guadalupe Island goes by two common names:
“Guadalupe Island or Isla Guadalupe is a volcanic island located 241 kilometres (150 mi) off the west coast of Mexico‘s Baja California Peninsula and some 400 kilometres (250 mi) southwest of the city of Ensenada in the state of Baja California, in the Pacific Ocean. The two other Mexican island groups in the Pacific Ocean that are not on the continental shelf are Revillagigedo Islands and Rocas Alijos.”
Guadalupe Island was a major destination for Russian and American fur hunters seeking the Guadalupe Island fur seal in the 18th and 19th centuries, until they were nearly extinct by 1844. The northern elephant seal was also hunted for the oil in its blubber, but managed to survive and the seals remain today. Goats were brought to the island in the 19th century by European whalers and sealers for provisions when stopping over. Their numbers have fluctuated over the years, peaking at 100,000 and in more recent times being about 20,000. Guadalupe Island has been a nature conservancy area since 1928, making it one of the oldest reserves in Mexico.
Wildlife at Guadalupe Island
Guadalupe Island shares the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion with the Channel Islands of California in the United States, but the island was at one time practically denuded of all plants higher than a few centimeters by up to 100,000 feral goats. The goats have continued to be a problem, and their destruction of any living thing has actually caused desertification on the island in the long-term. In more recent years, much of this has been prevented with goat fence installation, and the island is recovering. As of June 2005, the Mexican government has almost completed a round-up and evacuation of the remaining goat population. Many island or marine species that reside on or near Guadalupe Island also frequent the Channel Islands, and vice versa. In stark contrast to the rampant extinction of terrestrial life that happened at the same time, Guadalupe has been the last refuge for the northern elephant seal and the Guadalupe fur seal in the 1890s. The island has been a pinniped sanctuary since 1975, creating a large pinniped population – therefore, Guadalupe Island is now one of the best spots in the world for sightings of the great white shark.
White Shark Cage Diving at Guadalupe Island
We specialize in taking non certified divers, or first time shark divers, into the exciting world of great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias). Dive with us and discover hands on shark research and shark conservation at Guadalupe Island. Shark Diving For Everyone is our commitment to showcase the incredible world of white sharks with a combination of 18 years of cage diving experience, a cage system designed exclusively for non divers, top notch shark staff and cage diving crews with years of hands on shark experience. We have been cage diving and naming many of the white sharks you’ll be diving with this year. From the incredible 19+ foot Deep Blue, most likely the largest great white shark in the Pacific, to many of our regular white sharks like Scarboard, Lucy, and Mau. These amazing animals have become more than just whites sharks to us as we encounter them year after year – we met Scarboard 16 years ago – they have become our sharky friends. Let’s dive!
Book your Guadalupe Island white shark cage diving adventures for less this year!
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Scuba Diver Girls Dive Bird Rock in Catalina with Aqualung!!!
The girls take a trip with the Aqualung team aboard Horizon Charters liveaboard San Diego, California. The first dive was at a site called Bird Rock. The water was a little murky but the kelp was as beautiful as ever! They saw baby horn sharks and bat rays which really made the dive exciting!
Auburn Coach Wife Kristi Malzahn Agrees with Match & eHarmony: Men are Jerks
My advice is this: Settle! That's right. Don't worry about passion or intense connection. Don't nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling Bravo! in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It's hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who's changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)
Obviously, I wasn't always an advocate of settling. In fact, it took not settling to make me realize that settling is the better option, and even though settling is a rampant phenomenon, talking about it in a positive light makes people profoundly uncomfortable. Whenever I make the case for settling, people look at me with creased brows of disapproval or frowns of disappointment, the way a child might look at an older sibling who just informed her that Jerry's Kids aren't going to walk, even if you send them money. It's not only politically incorrect to get behind settling, it's downright un-American. Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize (while our mothers, who know better, tell us not to be so picky), and the theme of holding out for true love (whatever that is—look at the divorce rate) permeates our collective mentality.
Even situation comedies, starting in the 1970s with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and going all the way to Friends, feature endearing single women in the dating trenches, and there's supposed to be something romantic and even heroic about their search for true love. Of course, the crucial difference is that, whereas the earlier series begins after Mary has been jilted by her fiancé, the more modern-day Friends opens as Rachel Green leaves her nice-guy orthodontist fiancé at the altar simply because she isn't feeling it. But either way, in episode after episode, as both women continue to be unlucky in love, settling starts to look pretty darn appealing. Mary is supposed to be contentedly independent and fulfilled by her newsroom family, but in fact her life seems lonely. Are we to assume that at the end of the series, Mary, by then in her late 30s, found her soul mate after the lights in the newsroom went out and her work family was disbanded? If her experience was anything like mine or that of my single friends, it's unlikely.
And while Rachel and her supposed soul mate, Ross, finally get together (for the umpteenth time) in the finale of Friends, do we feel confident that she'll be happier with Ross than she would have been had she settled down with Barry, the orthodontist, 10 years earlier? She and Ross have passion but have never had long-term stability, and the fireworks she experiences with him but not with Barry might actually turn out to be a liability, given how many times their relationship has already gone up in flames. It's equally questionable whether Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw, who cheated on her kindhearted and generous boyfriend, Aidan, only to end up with the more exciting but self-absorbed Mr. Big, will be better off in the framework of marriage and family. (Some time after the breakup, when Carrie ran into Aidan on the street, he was carrying his infant in a Baby Björn. Can anyone imagine Mr. Big walking around with a Björn?)