Shy Sharks out on the Ocean!
Day One of my Baja trip - We went out this morning to look for smooth hammerheads. I joined a morning trip organized by my buddy Jacobo, owner of Cabo Shark Dives. The morning was beautiful, the sun was out, with no wind, and the ocean was deceivingly calm. Of course, the boat is moored in the bay of Cabo San Lucas, and the waters here are always nice and calm.
As soon as we left the bay's protection, the swells in the Pacific started building, and the winds picked up. It was going to be a rough day out at sea.
We motored out about 7 miles, and the chumming began. Not even 10 minutes into chumming, a silky shark showed up and took a bite out of our hang bait. Sadly the excitement was short-lived because the silky did not stay very long.
We continued chumming; everyone's hopes were high.
Two hours later, we had another visitor to our chum box. This time it was a smooth hammerhead, but sadly, like the silky, the hammer did not stick around long enough for us to get in the water. It left just as fast as it arrived. The chumming continued for another hour, and we had two silky sharks show up, but again, they did not stay.
It is so difficult to figure out why some sharks stay and others leave. Sharks all have their own personalities - Some are bold, some are curious, and like the four sharks that visited us today, some are shy.
Sadly we had to leave early as Jacobo had a group he was taking out in the afternoon. The wind and the swells kept building, and the ride home was a bit of an ass-kicking, so I opted to stay in instead of going out with him for the second session.
Although we did not get skunked, we did not have the morning we all hoped to have. But that is nature and the ocean, and you never know what you are going to get. That is why I always plan our pelagic shark trips with more than one day because these sharks are so difficult to find sometimes. You need more than one day for a shot at seeing them. But despite the lack of shark encounters and no cool pics to share, I had a lot of fun hanging out on the ocean with the Cabo Shark crew and my buddy Al who out there with us.
Plus any day you get to spend out in nature is ALWAYS a great day.
So the plan now is to pack up my gear, grab some dinner and get ready to meet the group joining us for the orca trip tomorrow morning.
Thank you for reading and I hope to see you out in the world… somewhere… anywhere!