Editor's Note: This is part three of a three-part story. For Part I, click here and for Part II, click here. The author, C.J. Bahnsen is a freelance writer based out of Orange County, CA. Parts of this story previously appeared in the LA Times.

To watch a video of CJ's shark diving adventure, click here.

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There have been fears among conservationists and scientists that the advent of ecotourism and chumming is altering the behavior of great whites at this site. The island’s fishermen have reported that, since shark diving charters started showing up about four years ago, great whites have been shadowing their panga boats, associating the sound of a motor with feeding time. This was not the case before ecotours started in these waters.

The West Anchorage on the island’s windward side is a seasonal fishing camp for the same returning consortium of Mexican fishermen, also known as pangeros, and their families who spend 10 months harvesting Guadalupe’s abundant abalone and lobster. It's then shipped back to Ensenada, where most of them come from. Patric ritually offers them a few supplies, like fresh veggies, meat, batteries, sodas—even though they ask for beer—and fishing gear to maintain good relations. Some of the pangeros have become invaluable aids to shark researchers. Mauricio doesn’t necessarily view this behavioral change as a bad development because these sharks need more fat than is found in chum products or tuna. "They have to hunt elephant seals because their fat has twice the caloric value of muscle tissue from fish," he told Alan and I while we sat on Odyssey’s afterdeck, tiki torches irradiating the night sea with fire tones. "So maybe they eat the fish, but it will not become the main food of the sharks."

He has witnessed white sharks in rare form over his many trips to Guadalupe. "Last year, I saw a shark on the surface opening and closing its mouth in aggression as it swam sideways, about two meters from this boat," Mauricio said. "It’s like a dog showing its teeth. It’s almost the same thing." This behavior is known as aerial jaw gaping, mostly seen in males, the territorial sex. "Another thing I saw is tail slapping, when a shark smacks its tail against the surface or against another shark, but he did it against the boat, because the shark considers the boat competitive. And we’ve seen full body breeches and leaps. It’s like a threatening display against another shark."

"It was there he witnessed a predation, when a great white bit a sea lion in half next to the research vessel he was on."

A party unleashed later on that night, the result of boat fever that had settled over us after three days at sea—26 people enduring a confined space without relent. Landfall on Guadalupe Island is prohibited by the Mexican government without special permits, so divers are left to their own devices during downtime aboard ship. Beer and wine wasn’t swigged as much as it was shot-gunned. Voices reached drunken crescendo. The Bee Gees’ 'Staying Alive' morphed the salon floor into a retro disco—one of the divers, Alan Waltz, a DJ from San Jose, had lined into the house stereo system with his laptop’s dance mixes. The couples aboard busted moves and one unattached woman got lugged up enough to do a pole dance. I couldn’t keep up, beaten down by the taxes of coldwater diving. As I descended the aft stairwell to my bunk I heard the DJ shout, "Okay, now everybody do the white man’s overbite!"

My dive teammate, Ken, was the extreme junkie aboard The Odyssey. The Guadalupe trip completed the Grand Slam circuit for him. Some people chase storms. Ken, 30ish and head-shaven, chases great whites. He is streetwise from pulling undercover duty in Motown’s 'Southwest' gangland. His fellow officers have christened him 'Shark Bait,' figuring the nickname will become a fulfilled prophecy if he keeps tempting white death. On a diving expedition in Australia off the Neptune Islands, he was only minutes inside the shark cage when a great white rushed up from below, hitting it so hard "the shark lifted the cage out of the water trying to get to me," Ken said. "No bait was even in the water yet." He theorizes the shark was attracted to the blood red color of his dry suit, the same dry suit he wore in our cage, until it sprung a leak and he reverted to his 7mm black wetsuit.