It’s easy to go great white shark cage diving from San Diego
Whilst San Diego has great white sharks off its coast, there’s no shark cage diving tours immediately around San Diego. But if you’re prepared to get on a liveaboard boat to Guadalupe Island, you’ll be able to cage dive with great white sharks there.
You have two options to dive with great white sharks from San Diego. Either step straight on to a boat in San Diego for a trip to Guadalupe Islands. Alternatively, hop on a bus from San Diego to Ensenada, Mexico.
4 shark cage diving liveaboards from San Diego, California
America’s Shark Boat MV Horizon: 16 divers departing San Diego.
Nautilus Under Sea: 27 metre (89 feet) boat. Bus ride from San Diego to Ensenada.
Nautilus Belle Amie: 41 metre (135 feet) custom built boat. Bus ride to Ensenada.
Nautilus Explorer: 35 metre (115 feet) custom built boat. Bus ride to Ensenada.
The only way to dive Mexico’s Guadalupe Island is by a scuba diving liveaboard. You can check the latest and best deals on Mexico liveaboards using the following window:
Best place for great white shark diving from San Diego
If you live in San Diego you’re in luck, as you can easily travel to the Guadalupe Island in Baja, California. There are four liveaboard boats that travel from San Diego.
This also means that if you live in the USA, you can simply travel to San Diego using an internal flight.
So whether you’re traveling from within the US either Florida, Hawaii, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York or New Jersey or wherever, it’s only a short internal flight away.
If however, you’re travelling from further afield you simply need to fly into San Diego international airport.
For example, you can fly direct from London Heathrow in the U.K. to San Diego.
Liveaboard boats travelling from San Diego California
Horizon Charters is the only Guadalupe Island shark cage-diving company departing from the U.S. Which means not having to use a bus ride to Ensenada, Mexico. But having said that, I have also include three further liveaboards where you depart from San Diego by bus, but join the liveaboard in Mexico.
1. America’s Shark Boat MV Horizon – Great White Shark diving tours
America’s Shark Boat MV Horizon – For Guadalupe shark diving – Image courtesy of Liveaboard.com
The America’s Shark Boat MV Horizon is the Guadalupe Islands original shark boat. This liveaboard boat has offered great white shark diving since 2000. The MV Horizon has an added bonus as the only boat that departs from San Diego. This means there’s no bus-ride to Mexico
With an emphasis on safety, cage diving with America’s Shark Boat is suitable for everyone, regardless of experience. There are three full days of cage diving available. This gives you approximately 11-18 hours of in-water time per trip. Click this link to see the latest prices and availability.
The area in San Diego for shark cage diving is San Diego, CA 92116.
Nautilus Under Sea is rated 8.7 and fabulous. Famous for being the support boat for the James Bond Movie ‘License to Kill’. A 27 metre (89 feet) liveaboard, catering for up to 17 guests in 8 en-suite air conditioned cabins.
The Nautilus Under Sea offers liveaboard trips to Guadalupe for cage diving with Great White Sharks. But also for scuba diving the Socorro Islands where divers will come face to face with Giant Pacific Mantas and schooling hammerheads.
California shark diving reviews from Nautilus Under Sea
“best trip for the price. getting bumped by a great white and loosing balance in the cage.” Recommended for: Sharks, sharks and a sea lion chasing a small juvenile white.
“Great experience. Great white sharks, great crew and participants, well organised.” Recommended for: abundant great white sharks, amazing crew, comfortable boat.
The Nautilus Belle Amie is rated 9.5 exceptional. She is a 41 metre (135 feet) custom built liveaboard and offers scuba divers with comfort and safety. This liveaboard boat caters for up to 30 scuba divers in 16 cabins all with en-suite and air-conditioning.
The Nautilus Belle Amie goes to Guadalupe for great whites or the Socorro Islands famous for manta rays. The Nautilus Belle Amie offers 6-day trips with a pick-up at the Ramada Hotel in San Diego and a bus ride to Ensenada. Experience required is Open Water certification and no minimum logged dives required. Click this link to see the latest prices and availability.
The Nautilus Explorer is rated 8.8 and fabulous. She is a 35 metre (115 feet) custom built liveaboard boat for divers to explore the amazing sites of Guadalupe and the Socorro Islands, Mexico.
The Nautilus Explorer liveaboard has 13 cabins. These range from a cost effective mixed-gender triple occupancy stateroom to a luxurious premium suite. The Nautilus Explorer offers 6-day trips with a pick-up at the Ramada Hotel in San Diego and a bus ride to Ensenada.
Unfortunately shark diving San Diego day trips are not available, as the shark diving trips to Guadalupe are mostly trips of 5 days 4 nights. The shark diving liveaboards usually depart in the evening and arrive the next day in the afternoon. This is because Guadalupe Island is about 400km (260 miles) from the mainland.
I hope you enjoyed this article about shark cage diving San Diego California
I’d love to hear from you. Tell us about your adventures of diving and snorkeling, in the comments below. Please also share your photos. Either from your underwater cameras or videos from your waterproof Gopro’s!
If this article hasn’t answered all of your questions. If you have more questions either about snorkeling or types of scuba diving (or specifically about shark cage diving San Diego, California), please comment below with your questions.
Shark Cage Diving San Diego, California (San Diego Great White Shark)
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Article written by Russell Bowyer who has been a scuba diver since diving on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 1989. After his first dive he trained as a BSAC diver in the UK. He attained his Diver Leader certification with BSAC. He then went on to become a scuba diving instructor, teaching others how to dive and was voted as Diving Officer and Treasurer for the Saffron Walden BSAC club too. Russell has dived all over the world, including the UK, on liveaboards in the Red Sea, the Caribbean, South Africa and the USA. Russell is experienced in all dive types, including drift diving, deep dives that involved decompression stops and recreational dives too.
