The time has come for our final Guadalupe trip of the season and what a season it has been! Amazing guests, sharks and memories. We left for one last time this year off the back of two highly successful trips, the question was........could we finish with a bang. It turns out, there was still one last spectacle to be seen before we pay farewell to the island and its sharks for another year.................
When we arrived at the Island we where greeted to a slight rain shower (the first of the season) but not uncommon during our mid to late November trips. Not to be deterred, we had the cages in the water and sharks around the boat after a couple of rotations (and just in time for the sun to come back out.) We counted 4 different sharks including Chappy, one of our most feisty sharks of the year! We first saw Chappy on trip one and we gave him his nickname. It turns out he is a brand new shark seen only this year so we have been able to officially name him and he will be added to the ID books which hold over 200 different animals identified at Guadalupe. Around midday we where visited by Curley, one of the islands big females who we also saw earlier on in the season. Curley is around 14ft in size and when she arrived she soon put Chappy in his place and he quickly vanished for the rest of the day. Curley, thankfully remained and gave our divers a great start to the trip. Unknown to them, it was about to get a lot better and bigger.................
During the first night after everyone had eaten dinner and where about to settle down for the night, Buzz (one of our crew members) ran into my cabin saying he had seen a giant shark swim around the boat just being visible in the boats night lights. Buzz knows his sharks and if he says its big, its big! I went to bed hoping the shark might make an appearance during the diving the following day................
Day 2 and after a quite morning our “Big shark” turned up around midday. She was a giant. 18ft in size, her dorsal and tail fins towered out of the water when she broke the surface. Her girth was incredible (between 6 - 7 ft) and she was covered in bite marks! When a shark this size swims past our surface cages (which are 12ft long by the way) its like a small truck gliding by and only wide lensed cameras are able to fit her in frame! After a quick ID on the back deck, it turns out she was one of Guadalupes well known females named “Mystery.” She was first seen at the island in 2004 then again in 2005. She spent 06 and 07 away from the island returning for 08 and 09 before leaving again for another 2 years (10 and 11) and is now back once more. This pattern is common in the big females found here and it is theorized that they become pregnant during their time here and leave for two years at a time to give birth (where we don't know) before returning once more and continuing the cycle again. Her name suits her just right and like many of our encounters this year, it was a privilege to be in her company for what turned out to be the whole day! 
So we entered our final day at Guadalupe. Whilst setting up the cages in the morning we witnessed a natural breach about 100 yards of the port side and once we started diving the leaving party got into full swing with Chappy., Arden Grace and our old friend Bite Face generating a very exciting finale.
So this concludes our guadalupe island season for the year. We bid the sharks the island and of course the sharks farewell and headed back to San Diego for the final time. We would like to personally thank all the crew, guests and sharks for a very memorable season with many unforgettable memories. 
Keep in touch everyone of you and hopefully we will meet again soon...................with the sharks!
Jimi Partington
SDX
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