There’s a bulldozer coming slowly toward you as you float in the warm waters off Mexico’s northern Yucatan Peninsula– and it’s ALIVE. Brown with lots of white spots, its gaping …
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13 Dec 20102:56 PM
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![](mailto:?subject=Swim With the Largest Fish in the Ocean with Shark Team One&body=There's a bulldozer coming slowly toward you as you float in the warm waters off Mexico's northern Yucatan Peninsula-- and it's ALIVE.
Brown with lots of white spots, its gaping maw the size of a front-end loader, a 15-foot whale shark is cruising only six feet away. And despite your wildly-thumping heart, the shark doesn't really care that you are there; it's concentrating on sucking up zooplankton on the surface. Its small eye darts in your direction, but the shark never alters its slow, steady course.
If you join Guy Harvey Outpost's Whale Shark Expedition to Isla Mujeres, Mexico Aug 5-11, led by Angela Smith's Shark Team One, you are virtually guaranteed a repeat of this scenario multiple times per day. Your group of 10 explorers will shoot photos and video of the largest aggregation of the endangered animals known to science; learn to identify individual sharks; and contribute to a research data base compiling numbers, sex, behavior, and size information. You may also get to extend this exercise to include manta rays which are frequently seen swimming with the whale sharks.
"It's crazy good swimming among sharks that big!" Smith said. "We'll get a lot of time in the water because it's a private charter. I want [guests] to go away feeling they became shark advocates because they helped and learned things about shark conservation."
<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/whaleshark3.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4606" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/whaleshark3.jpg" alt="whaleshark3" width="720" height="468" /></a>
Smith, an award-winning film and video producer and marine conservationist, founded Shark Team One in 2013 to advocate for, protect, and study endangered sharks around the world. Expeditions to locations such as Mexico, Belize and the Bahamas enlist citizen scientists to observe, document and create public awareness of the sharks' plight.
In Isla Mujeres, visitors may only snorkel with whale sharks; scuba gear is not permitted because of disruptive bubbles. Flash photography also is prohibited, so Shark Team One photographers will learn how to make the best of natural light.
After each day's snorkel adventure, participants will enjoy a beach lunch and head back to town for optional shopping and cultural tours or just relaxing at Hotel Playa Media Luna, a Guy Harvey Outpost Expedition Lodge that will serve as base camp. Dinner will rotate among various local restaurants.
If this sounds fun to you (and it should!!!), book your reservations now at the <a href="http://guyharveyoutpost.com/expeditions/expedition-adventures/whale-shark-expedition/">Guy Harvey Outpost web site</a>! https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/swim-with-the-largest-fish-in-the-ocean-with-shark-team-one/){kind=link}
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![](mailto:?subject=Great Marlin Race May Come to Galapagos&body=Last March, Californian Bob Kurz, a trustee with the International Game Fish Association, and his IGFA rep wife Sally took an important step to advance billfish science around the world: they implanted a striped marlin with a pop-off satellite tag while fishing around Ecuador's <a href="https://guyharveyoutpost.com/adventure/outpost-adventures/expeditions/galapagos-big-game-fishing/">Galapagos Islands</a>.
The tag, scheduled to detach from the fish's dorsal fin after 240 days, was the first to be implanted in a billfish in the remote Pacific islands as part of the IGFA's Great Marlin Race. Since the IGFA took over the international tournament-within-a-tournament in 2011, some 350 satellite tags have been deployed in billfish in 22 countries. The tags record fish tracks in real time, including depth, temperature and other data, then relays them to a satellite which beams the information to researchers at California's Stanford University. Anglers buy the $4,500 tags and receive special recognition for the distances their tagged fish travel.
Sally Kurz caught the striper, estimated at 200 pounds, while trolling lures on the sport fishing boat Vertigo from the Galapagos Planet Hotel, a <a href="https://guyharveyoutpost.com/lodging/out-island-lodges/">Guy Harvey Outpost Lodge</a> on <a href="https://guyharveyoutpost.com/lodging/out-island-lodges/galapagos/san-cristobal/">San Cristobal Island</a>. The couple also caught and released numerous yellowfin tuna. They were accompanied by a representative of the Galapagos National Park.
"They liked what we were doing," Bob Kurz said of park officials. "They are very interested in learning more about the billfish that frequent the Galapagos."
<a href="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/tag.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4901" src="https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/tag.jpg" alt="" width="3264" height="2448" /></a>
Kurz was so encouraged by the park's receptiveness that he is putting together a proposal to hold the first formal Great Marlin Race Tournament in the Galapagos in January 2019. He says that's prime time for catching stripers as well as blue and black marlin around the islands.
"Wherever you have a species, you try to deploy tags in as many different places as you can," Kurz said.
For example, Kurz said, tagging data helps solve mysteries such as why the average striper caught in California weighs about 140 pounds while fish over 300 pounds are common in New Zealand-- "whether they are separate and distinct populations," he said.
The tagging data also helps scientists inform fisheries managers who are hammering out policies to conserve billfish, such as time-and-area closures, gear restrictions and other measures.
"It's a citizen science program," Kurz said. "Very exciting for people who enjoy fishing for marlin."
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You don't have to wait for the next Great Marlin Race to fish for billfish in Galapagos. Book your lodging and fishing with Galapagos Planet, a Guy Harvey Outpost Expedition Lodge at <a href="https://www.guyharveyoutpost.com">www.guyharveyoutpost.com</a> or call 1-800-513-5257.
To learn more about the Great Marlin Race, visit <a href="https://www.igfa.org">www.igfa.org</a>. https://guyharveyoutpostblog.com/great-marlin-race-may-come-to-galapagos/){kind=link}
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