Why Choose Great White Adventures?

To put it simply, we at GWA understand that your time and money is valuable to you. Furthermore, when it comes to choosing a dive or adventure vacation, you want to be sure that the trip you signed up for is the best possible option out of all the possibilities out there. With this in mind, we have compiled a list of reasons as to why, when all the facts are laid out before you, Great White Adventures outshines all others when it comes to White Shark Dive Adventures. We are here to ensure that your dreams of diving with white sharks becomes a reality.

Experience – Don’t be fooled. When it comes to locating and diving with sharks, experience is everything. Just having a boat, cages and a website doesn’t always indicate experience. Some operators may even attempt to give an impression of vast amounts of experience by combining stats for multiple boats. Fact: GWA is the single most experienced white shark dive operator in all of North America with more days in the water with white sharks than all the other operators combined. We have been running our white shark expeditions since 1998 and were the first to begin making successful expeditions to Guadalupe Island beginning in September 2001.

Success Rate – Once again, don’t be misled. As previously mentioned, having a boat, cages and a website doesn’t necessarily ensure a high success rate when it comes to white shark encounters. Fact: More divers have had successful white shark encounters with GWA than any other shark dive operator in North America. In fact, we have a 100% success rate for Guadalupe Island and nearly an 80% success rate at the Farallon Islands. We take pride in the fact that no other company can boast a better record of successful white shark encounters than GWA.

No Middlemen – In some cases, a white shark “dive operator” may only be a booking agent for a variety of boats. Their sole connection is only that of a salesperson working on commission. Fact: At GWA, you are dealing directly with the company that oversees every aspect of its shark dive operations. When you call our office, you speak with one of our expedition leaders or crew members. Dealing directly helps to ensure unfortunate “surprises” are kept to a minimum when it comes to planning your adventure. You can rest assured that our highly experienced expedition leaders are on each and every one of our white shark trips.

Maximum Flexibility – Our season runs longer and we offer more trips per season than any other operator without sacrificing our industry leading success rate. This allows maximum flexibility when it comes to planning your vacation. We also offer a variety of white shark dive trips ranging from our 1 day trips to the Farallon Islands off of San Francisco to our 5, 6 or 8 day liveaboard trips for the serious shark enthusiast to Guadalupe Island. For our extended liveaboard trips, we even give you the option of booking a spot on our standard liveaboard or for those seeking some finer creature comforts, our luxury dive boat is a great choice.

Top Equipment – When it comes to diving with white sharks, cage design is obviously not an area where you want to cut corners, so to speak. Ours spacious cages are state of the art, designed by us and manufactured to our exact specifications, sparing no expense. We oversee every aspect of their construction from start to finish. A cage will not go into the water until it passes with our seal of approval. With our wealth of experience behind us, we know what designs work and more importantly, what doesn’t work. We understand the needs of our divers so each cage is designed for maximum ease of entry and exit. For our photographers and videographers, extensive effort has produced an optimum design for acquiring those Pulitzer Prize winning images while maintaining safety, structural integrity, and protective capabilities. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we are flattered more and more with each passing season as we notice cages remarkably similar to our unique designs on other boats.
It’s not just our cages that must pass our stringent standards. All of our equipment, from our regulators which are disassembled, cleaned and tuned every season to our high pressure hoses, cables, and fasteners, etc. are thoroughly inspected throughout the year

Deep Submersible Cage – To date, no other operator in North America offers its everyday customers the exciting option of diving in a deep submersible cage when diving at Guadalupe Island. In addition to our large top side cages, every one of our certified divers can experience the thrill of being lowered into the clear blue realm of the white shark. Our special two person (1 divemaster, 1 customer) submersible cage was originally designed for our IMAX shark film expeditions. Suspended approx 25 feet below the boat while multiple sharks circled from every direction was a thrill not soon forgotten. We had so much fun that we knew we had to offer this experience to our regular customers. It’s been a tremendous hit ever since. Most divers exclaim it’s one of the most exciting shark encounters they’ve ever experienced.

More Cage Time – Unlike some of our competitors, the unique design of our cages and associated ladder systems allows us to keep our cages in the water day and night, weather permitting. How does this impact our divers? What this means is that our divers are not restricted (within reason – no midnight or 3am dives for you insomniacs out there) as to when they want to get into the water. It’s not uncommon for our heartiest, hardcore divers to spend upwards of 8 hours a day in the cages. If we’re lucky enough to have inquisitive sharks continue to circle into the night, we say “have at it folks”. We can’t pass up unique opportunities like that.

Fact: GWA is the only operator at Guadalupe that offers the option of “Night Dives” with white sharks. Night diving with white sharks is both eerie and exciting at a primordial level. Unlike the daytime dives, you won’t see the shark approach the cage until the last moment. Although perfectly safe, being in a cage in the dark as sharks circle close by certainly might not be for everyone, but for those intrepid souls it is, make sure those pacemakers are properly charged if you know what I mean! One additional note, we purposely limit the amount of divers we take on our expeditions. Although our boats are capable of taking 22+ divers, we book no more than 16 per trip, ensuring comfort and personal service with the added benefit of increased cage time. We simply don’t believe in loading our boats with extra divers for the sake of profit.

Fishing Options – Although diving with white sharks is tops in terms of excitement, we’re aware that some of our divers might also be interested in fishing options. The waters around Guadalupe Island represent some of the best sport fishing the Pacific has to offer. Record setting tuna have been caught in the waters immediately surrounding the island. Though not world record setters, many of our passengers have caught tuna weighing up to 70 lbs. The real challenge is getting the tuna on board before the sharks collect their “tax”. We’ve also discovered that hooking a tuna definitely has the capacity to amp up the shark action around the boat. As an extra courtesy to our angler-oriented divers, we have purchased permits from the Mexican government allowing those among our group with the desire to fish, the opportunity to do so. As fun as fishing for big tuna can be, from an environmental standpoint, we do request that our passengers not catch fish solely for the sake of just catching a fish. We practice a use what you catch policy. If you want to store the fish for future consumption, we can make that happen. If you want to share the culinary experience with your fellow passengers, our chefs can prepare a tasty sashimi platter or a fantastic, fresh as you can get tuna steak dinner. Yum!

Conservation – GWA strongly supports environmental responsibility on all our shark diving eco-tours. As ambassadors between the general public and the world of sharks, we strive to dispel the myths and misinformation that’s often associated with these amazing animals. In return, we endeavor to provide our customers with a fun, exciting, educational and safe (for both human and shark) experience. We believe that responsible eco-tourism will help provide a positive step towards protecting these fascinating and often maligned creatures. GWA is a proud corporate sponsor of the Shark Research Institute and we’re often called upon a source of assistance for a variety of shark related scientific studies.