Adventure News from Incredible Adventures
SEPTEMBER 2011
Extreme Adventure Travel Experiences Around the World!
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It's Shark Time in San Francisco

Director of West Coast Shark Operations Greg Barron has been racking up charges on IA's bank card this week.  He's been busy picking up supplies and making sure everything is ready for our first San Francisco shark dive adventure of 2011. White shark season in San Francisco officially opens this Saturday, September 24th and continues on select dates through November 20th.

Incredible Adventures has a permit to use seal decoys to attract white sharks.In case you're curious, divers will be breathing from new air hoses and drying off with some new towels this season. Our seal decoys will also be getting some new stuffing. (A surprise change in Sanctuary rules means our seals need emergency surgery to replace their insides.)

Demand for trips has been so high this season that we recently added four additional dates to this year's schedule, including two special Friday trips. That means it's not too late to book a dive with great white sharks this season.

Cage divers pay $875 and topsiders pay $375 for a full day adventure in the Farallones.   For a list of available dates or additional info, please contact us at 800-644-7382.

The Adventure of Offering an Adventure Within a National Marine Sanctuary

Shark Dive Adventures at San Francisco's Farallon IslandsOur shark dive adventures in San Francisco take place within California's Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. In 2009, regulations were enacted making it illegal to attract white sharks within the Sanctuary without a permit.

We're happy to report we've been issued permit GFNMS-2011-005, granting us the right to use seal shaped decoys to attract white sharks this season. We go to the Farallones hoping to witness natural predations (sharks feeding on seals), but decoys help increase the likelihood of seeing a shark near our cage or boat. Regular readers of our news may remember that last year, a white shark left a pretty big bite mark in one of our seal decoys.

That said, we'd be a whole lot happier this year if we'd actually received the permit we requested from the Sanctuary.  We asked for permission to use scent attractant, which could significantly increase the number of near shark sightings at the Farallones, but they said no.

We know from experience that decoys can work, but statistics confirm they work much better when used together with scent attractant. That's why researchers at the Farallones use a combination of scent and decoys and why Incredible Adventures has been fighting NOAA for three long years for permission to let sharks smell fish. 

See great whtie sharks in San Francisco with 
Incredible AdventuresA top researcher who has extensively studied shark brains believes the use of scent would be no more disturbing to sharks than the use of a decoy. Several other researchers have also voiced support granting our request. (When you use scent attractant, you're using food to produce a scent in the water which sharks can choose to investigate, or not. You're not feeding sharks or putting food directly into the water.  It's a method of shark attraction commonly used by shark researchers hoping to observe sharks in their natural, relaxed state.)

Incredible Adventures will be appealing the Sanctuary's most recent denial to the Assistant Administrator of NOAA. That means IA President Jane Reifert is gearing up to write another 6000+ word appeal brief.

We're telling you all this so that you understand the lengths we go to in order to insure every one of our adventures is as incredible as it can be. And, because we need help. If you're one of the many reporters on our list and can help to make the story of our permit fight public, please call Jane at 800-644-7382. We need all the help we can get. (Thanks!)

New Featured Videos

We update the videos on the "Featured Videos" page of our website often. Visit the page now to see great new MiG video from Russia and a fun birthday video featuring the incredible L-39.

Incredible Adventures is on FacebookWe're On Facebook

We just posted photos from this year's MAKS Air Show in Russia to our company's Facebook page. Getting to see them is your reward for liking us :)

 


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A Giant Reason to Get Dive Certified

Dive with Giant Mantas in Mexico

If you've always talked about getting dive certified but just haven't gotten around to it, here's all the motivation you need to call your local dive center and sign up for classes.

You don't need to be dive certified to cage dive with great white sharks or tiger sharks, but you do need to be dive certified to get into the water with the Giant Mantas of Mexico.

This incredible underwater adventure takes place an ocean crossing away from the popular cruise port of Cabo San Lucas. Dive with Manta Rays and Incredible AdventuresTravel with the wonderful crew of the Nautilus Explorer to Mexico's Socorro Island, for a very personal encounter with giant manta rays, dolphins and sharks. (The Nautilus Explorer is the same great vessel used for our great white shark trips to Isla Guadalupe.)

Dive with Giant Mantas aboard the Nautilus ExplorerWith a typical fin span of 5 to 6 meters, these friendly mantas are truly gentle giants. (For those who've forgotten their metric system, that's roughly 15 to 19 feet in size. They're not just bigger than a breadbox, they're bigger than a lot of kitchens!)

Choose from a variety of itineraries and cabin choices. For complete details, call or email Sheri.

Traveling to the Edge for 18 Years

Fly a MiG 
over Russia with Incredible AdventuresToday, our edge of space flight in the MiG-29 is our most popular MiG offering. Many don't realize we started offering high-altitude flights in Russia completely by accident.

The year was 1993. A writer named Peter and an investment banker named Sarah were in Moscow, preparing to fly the MiG-29, when a mechanical problem was discovered with the jet. Our friends at the base asked permission to substitute the little known MiG-25 for their flights.

Suddenly, the jet no one had heard of and no one wanted to fly became the jet everyone heard of and everyone wanted to fly. It didn't take long for word to spread about the jet's unique ability to fly very high and very fast.

You can take a trip down MiG memory lane and read about Peter and Sarah's incredible 1993 adventure here. (We love it that the New York Times makes the old article available online.)

Today's high-altitude flights are performed in the MiG-29 Fulcrum. If you'd like to experience the thrill of flying to the edge of space (at 2011 prices), contact Greg today. Winter is one of the best times to schedule a high-altitude jet, because the MiG-29 flies its highest in cold weather.

San Francisco Shark Dives, Farallon Islands, September through December

www.incredible-adventures.com

800-644-7382 ~ 941-346-2603

 

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