If you’ve ever wanted to live out your very own Shark Week, you now can. Grand Isle Resort and Spa, located on Great Exuma, is offering guests a once in a lifetime chance to get up close and personal with these marine predators.
Grand Isle is teaming up with Beneath the Waves, a nonprofit organization that researches sharks to better inform conservation efforts. The clear blue waters around the Exuma Cays are home to a number of shark species, making it the perfect place to conduct this research.
Guests of Grand Isle Resort have the unique opportunity to join marine biologists on a research mission to find and tag Caribbean sharks. This amazing opportunity is being offered for less than one week only, from February 20th-24th. Guests can opt into the daily excursion and will board a research vessel. The mission will be to search for Tiger, Reef, Hammerhead, and Nurse sharks. Once located, guests can assist the marine biologist in tagging them as well as collecting data and specimens from them.
Exuma offers visitors a number of chances to get up close with local sharks. Visitors can swim with Nurse sharks at Compass Cay or view them while scuba diving off the coast. The sharks in the area are used to human presence and often ignore them. They are still wild animal though, and even the docile Nurse sharks have been known to bite visitors. It’s always recommended that visitors remain vigilant around these animals.
This is a special trip that any visitor would be lucky to go on. The excursion is open to all Grand Isle Resort guests during the select dates. It requires a donation of $500 per person to Beneath the Waves to help research and conservation efforts. This is excursion is perfect for those looking for adventure and to help preserve the amazing Exuma environment.
If you don’t get the chance to go this year don’t panic. The resort plans on opening more shark tagging excursions later this year. It’s wonderful that the resort is getting tourists involved in conservation efforts. Exuma’s oceans are home to many amazing animals that deserve respect.