Best Time To See Great White Sharks In Cape Cod
If you are keen to see great white sharks in Cape Cod, you will want to know the best time to see great white sharks in Cape Cod.
The best time to see great white sharks in Cape Cod is July to October when water temperatures in Cape Cod Bay and surrounding seas rise above their preferred minimum temperature of 12°C (53.6°F). If you’re looking to see white sharks in Cape Cod remember this is nature and there’s no guarantees.
Great white sharks will usually arrive in Cape Cod in June when the waters tend to rise over 12°C and leave in November once the water temperature falls below 12°C. This is when the Cape Cod white sharks head south along the east coast of America, some great white sharks travelling as far as the Gulf of Mexico.
If you would love to dive with great white sharks, one of the best ways to do this is to book yourself on a scuba diving liveaboard that visits Guadalupe Island in Mexico. You can check the latest and best deals on liveaboards using the following window:
How big are great white sharks in Cape Cod
Great whites can grow to 20 feet (6 metres) in length and weigh up to 4,000lbs (1814kg), which is a huge fish by anyone’s imagination. You may not see a 20 foot great white shark when you’re in Cape Cod, but you may be lucky to see white sharks closer to 14-15 feet (4.27-4.57 metres) long.
You are more likely to see smaller great white white sharks up to around 810 feet (2.44-3 metres) long, but only when the weather conditions are right.
The best way to see great white sharks in Cape Cod
The best way to see great white sharks in Cape Cod is to book on a trip with one of the great white sharks charter boats, but these trips are expensive. You may be lucky to see great whites from the beaches of Cape Cod.
Please see below where you can find out more about the three great white shark tour companies in Cape Cod offering great white sharks experiences.
Can you see great white sharks from the beaches in Cape Cod?
You can see great white sharks from the beaches of Cape Cod, as great whites can often come close to the shore. The best beaches in Cape Cod to spot great white sharks are on the outer shores of Cape Cod.
The following video is of a great white shark attacking a grey seal from Race Point Beach, this shark is only feet from the shoreline.
Great White Shark ATTACKS a seal close to shore at Cape Cod beach A great white shark finishes off a seal it had attacked earlier. The seal wandered back into the water after coming to the shore. Race Point Beach in Provincetown, MA.
Great White Shark tours Cape Cod
There are no guarantees of seeing Cape Cod great white sharks as this is nature. I recently found this out myself on a blue whale watching trip in Dana Point CA (we saw no blue whales).
The are a few companies offering great white shark tours and adventures, which include the following charter companies:
- Dragonfly Sportfishing great white shark adventures – $1,600 for 2.5 hours with a plane spotter; operate June to November, but recommend July to October when most white sharks are in Cape Cod.
- White Shark Tours Cape Cod – $1,700 for 3 hours with a spotter plane; operating July to October.
- Down Cape Charters & Boat Rentals great white shark tour Cape Cod – Private charter for 1-6 passengers is $1,950 (7-10 $2,325; 11-14 $2,650); Schedule group tour rates are $295 per person; Trips are 3 hours long; Use a plane spotter.
- White Shark Tours Cape Cod – $1,700 for 3 hours with a plane spotter; operate July to October.
- Cape Cod Shark Adventures – Experience Cape Cod great white sharks either underwater from a cage at a cost of $325 per person or without getting wet from the deck of a boat for $275 per person. No spotter plane is used, but chumming the water is used instead to attract sharks to the boat. Trips are over 3 hours long. Operate year round, but great white sharks will usually only be spotted July to October.
Please note that all charters and Cape Cod shark trips can only use spotter planes when weather permits. If the visibility is bad, the spotter planes will not be able to see the great white sharks.
Dragonfly Sportfishing – Offering great white shark adventures
Dragonfly Sportfishing offer a great white shark charter for approximately 2.5 hours long. This trip includes the use of their private spotter plane overhead to increase the chances of seeing great whites on your trip.
Seeing Cape Cod great white sharks is not guaranteed. But you can speak with their staff before booking to get a good idea of the likelihood of success. Use this discussion to assess recent sightings of white sharks in Cape Cod and if you are more likely to see great white sharks on your trip.
The cost of their great white shark trip at the time of writing this article is US$1,600 for 2.5 hours (extra hours can be purchased for $500).
Here’s a video from Dragonfly Sportfishing and you can find out more here.
White Shark Tours Cape Cod – Offering the ultimate Cape Cod white shark experience
White Shark Tours Cape Cod offer Cape Cod great white shark charters for approximately 3 hours long “dock to dock“. This trip includes the use of a private spotter plane overhead to increase the chances of seeing great whites on your trip.
They use a spotter pilot flying overhead to direct them to the Cape Cod White Sharks. They boast that they typically spot multiple Great White Sharks on each trip, with these white sharks coming within a couple meters or less from the boat for excellent visibility.
The cost of their trip at the time of writing this article is US$1,700 for 3 hours dock to dock.
Here’s a video from White Shark Tours Cape Cod and an interview with their skipper Captain Cullen Lundholm. You can find out more here.
Down Cape Charters & Boat Rentals great white shark tour Cape Cod
Down Cape Charters offer a great white shark charter for approximately 3 hours long. This trip includes the use of a private spotter plane overhead for 2 hours of the trip to increase the chances of seeing Cape Cod great white sharks.
Down Cape Charters offer an ‘exclusive small-group shark viewing tours‘ along the coast of Chatham, Monomoy Island and Nauset Beach. This area is Dubbed “Shark Alley”, and is a stretch of open Atlantic that offers a rare opportunity to witness great white sharks in their natural environment.
The cost of their trip at the time of writing this article is a private charter US$1,950 for 1-6 passengers, $2,325 for 7-10 passengers, $2,650 for 11-14 passengers. Down Cape Charters also offer scheduled group tours too which are $295 per person. Their trips are for 3 hours.
For more information click here.
White Shark Tours Cape Cod
White Shark Tours Cape Cod offer a great white shark charters for approximately 3 hours long. This trip includes the use of a private spotter plane overhead for 1.5 hours of the trip to increase the chances of seeing Cape Cod great white sharks.
The cost of their trip at the time of writing this article is a private charter and is $1,700 for up to 6 passengers. Their trips operate between July to October.
Cape Cod Shark Adventures
Cape Cod Shark Adventures offer three types of Cape Cod great white shark adventures. Firstly, you can experience these majestic predators from a cage. Secondly, you can experience Cape Cod great white sharks from the comfort of the deck and stay dry, like the first three great white shark adventure tours. Thirdly, you can dive cage-free with the sharks.
The cage diving experience with Cape Cod Shark Adventures includes all the equipment and you don’t need to be a certified scuba diver to participate. But if you are an experienced scuba diver, you can experience their cage-free shark diving experience, which is outside of the cage. The cage-free diving experience also includes all the diving equipment you need too.
The cost of their trips at the time of writing this article are $325 per person for the Cape Cod shark cage diving experience, $325 for the cage-free shark diving experience, and $275 for the Cape Cod shark viewing experience from the deck of their boat. The trips are for more than 3 hours, as it takes an hour to reach the shark grounds, and an hour to return to the dock.
Cape Cod Shark Adventures do not use a spotter plane with their adventures, but instead chum the water to attract sharks to the boat instead. For more information click here.
And don’t forget if you want to experience great white sharks up close and personal underwater (and you don’t even need to be a certified scuba diver to do it), go to Liveaboard.com and book yourself on a great white shark experience to Guadalupe Island.
You can even book to go from San Diego on the Horizon Liveaboard boat too.
I hope you enjoyed this article about the best time to see great white sharks in Cape Cod
If this article hasn’t answered all of your questions. If you have more questions either about snorkelling or scuba diving (or specifically about the best time to see great white sharks in Cape Cod), please comment below with your questions.
There will also be many more articles about scuba and scuba diving safety tips (and on snorkelling too) for you to read and learn about this fabulous sport.