Twenty Years in Their World

Two decades of Isla Whale Sharks and Searious Divers — what we’ve learned, what’s changed, and why we still believe that doing it the right way matters.

The first time I saw a whale shark from underwater, I forgot how to breathe.

Not because I was scared. Because I wasn’t prepared for what it would feel like. You hear the numbers — 40 feet long, the world’s largest fish — and you think you understand. Then you slip into the water, and this enormous, ancient, impossibly gentle creature glides past you like you’re nothing more than a ripple in its day. Your brain goes quiet. Your chest tightens. And something shifts inside you that never quite shifts back.

That moment happened for me over 20 years ago, on one of the very first trips out to where the whale sharks gather off Isla Mujeres. It was years before Isla Whale Sharks even existed as a business. Ramón Guerrero Garcia — legendary skin diver, the man who first studied the whale shark congregation in these waters — was still working with the government to build the framework for what responsible whale shark tourism could look like. I was just the guy who ran a small phone call and internet shop where everyone gathered to plan it all out.

But after that first swim, I knew I’d be part of this for the rest of my life.

How It Started

Ramón didn’t set out to build a tour company. He set out to build a future.

The fishermen of Isla Mujeres were watching their livelihoods disappear as tourism grew around them. Ramón saw what was happening, and he saw something else too — thousands of whale sharks gathering every summer in the waters these families had fished for generations. He believed there was a way to connect the two. A way for the children of fishermen to make a living from the ocean that didn’t depend on extraction, but on stewardship.

He spent years — years — working with local, state, and federal government to create the regulations, the permits, the framework. Rules about how many people could be in the water. Rules about how close you could get. Rules about what kind of boats could enter the feeding areas. None of it existed before Ramón helped build it.

I watched all of this unfold from behind the counter of my little phone and internet shop. And in 2006, Ramón and I made it official. He would run the on-the-water operation through Searious Divers — the captains, the guides, the boats, the deep knowledge that only comes from a lifetime on this ocean. I would handle the website, the bookings, and the client relationships. Two sides of the same coin, held together by the same belief: that these animals deserve our respect, and that sharing their world with people could be a force for good — if we did it the right way.

Twenty years later, that’s still the deal.

 

What Twenty Years Has Taught Us

We’ve learned a lot since 2006. Some of it from the ocean. Some of it from the sharks themselves. Some of it from getting things wrong and doing better the next time.

We’ve learned that the sharks don’t owe us anything. We are guests in their world, and the fact that they tolerate our presence — sometimes even seem curious about it — is a gift, not a guarantee. We’ve learned that when you approach them with calm and respect, they often stay longer. Sometimes they circle back. And when you chase or crowd them, they leave. The sharks have always been honest teachers.

We’ve learned that more boats don’t mean more success. Some of the best days we’ve ever had on the water were quiet ones — fewer boats, fewer swimmers, more space for the animals to just be. And some of the hardest decisions we’ve made were canceling tours on days when shark numbers were low, knowing that other operators would go out anyway and probably find a few. We’d rather protect the experience — for the sharks and for our guests — than protect the revenue.

We’ve learned that education changes everything. When Ramón or one of his team stands in front of a group on tour morning and talks about these animals — where they come from, why they’re here, how to be in the water with them — something happens. People stop thinking of this as an activity and start thinking of it as a responsibility. That shift is the entire point.

And we’ve learned that the right clients find you when you’re honest about who you are. We’ve never been the cheapest option. We’ve never promised a perfect day. We’ve never used fake scarcity or language that treats a living animal like a product. And yet, year after year, the people who book with us are exactly the kind of people we want on our boats — thoughtful, respectful, genuinely excited to learn. That’s not a coincidence. That’s the result of 20 years of saying who we are and meaning it.

 

 

The Things That Keep Us Up at Night

Twenty years also means twenty years of watching things change — and not all of it for the better.

We’ve watched the shark numbers rise and fall. Some seasons the water is thick with them — fifty, sixty sharks in a single outing, feeding in enormous groups that stretch across the surface. Other seasons, they’re harder to find. Fewer animals, spread thinner, behaving differently than the year before. We don’t always know why. But we’d be lying if we said we weren’t concerned about our own impact — about what it means to put boats and swimmers into the middle of their feeding grounds, season after season, year after year.

We hold that tension honestly. We always have. Tourism is a double-edged sword, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help the animals or the people who depend on them.

We’ve also watched the landscape around us shift dramatically. In the early days, this was a community of small family operators — fishermen’s sons who grew up on the water and saw whale shark tourism as a way to carry that connection forward. It was personal. It was local. Everyone knew everyone.

Then the money started coming in. And with it came larger operators buying up boats and licensing, turning what Ramón had built as a community framework into something more commercial. More boats on the water. More pressure to fill seats. More incentive to cut corners and compete on price rather than on care. The soul of what this was supposed to be — sustainable livelihoods for local families built on respect for the animals — started to feel like it was being squeezed out by something bigger and louder.

That’s been one of the harder things to witness over 20 years. Not the hard days on the water. Not the seasons when the sharks were scarce. But watching something that was built with so much love and intention start to bend under the weight of profit.

 

 

Why We Still Believe

And yet — here we are. Twenty years in, and our focus hasn’t moved an inch.

Because here’s what we’ve also seen: it’s not just us anymore. Over the past few years, a new generation of younger operators has started to emerge — and they carry the same soul and spirit that Ramón poured into this from the very beginning. They care about the sharks. They care about the community. They’re doing it the right way, not because someone told them to, but because they believe in it the same way we do.

That gives us more hope than we can say. Because this was never supposed to be about one operation doing it right. It was supposed to be about an entire community choosing stewardship over extraction. And seeing that vision take root in a younger generation — people who will still be doing this long after Ramón and I have stepped back — that might be the most meaningful thing to come out of these 20 years.

What Hasn’t Changed

The prices have changed. The regulations have evolved. The number of operators on the water has grown — sometimes in ways that concern us, sometimes in ways that inspire us.

But our focus is exactly where it was on day one.

We still believe that wildlife comes first. We still believe that education is not optional — it’s the foundation. We still believe that a meaningful encounter with a whale shark is worth more than a rushed, crowded one. We still believe that the families of Isla Mujeres deserve a future built on care for the ocean, not exploitation of it.

Ramón is still the soul of this operation. His team at Searious Divers works only with captains, guides, and crews who meticulously maintain their boats, hold themselves to the highest standards, and share the same spirit of care and respect that this was built on. I still answer every email, take every booking, and try to meet every client on tour day. We still make fresh ceviche on the boat. We still cancel tours when it’s the right thing to do. We still mean every word we say.

Twenty years of swimming alongside the world’s largest fish. Twenty years of early mornings and open water and that moment when a first-timer puts their face in and comes up changed.

We wouldn’t trade a single day of it.

Here’s to the next twenty. 💙