Great White Country: A Journey From Maine to Cape Cod

I’ve spent years looking at great white sharks through the lens of the Gulf of Mexico.

I’ve studied their movements, followed the research and spent a lot of time in places like South Padre Island, the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana and the Panama City-Destin region of Florida. These are incredibly different environments, but they are all places where great whites have shown up.

Now I’m getting a look at the other end of the road.

My wife Lisa, our daughter Faith and I traveled into Maine this week at the beginning of what I’m calling the Gulf Great White Shark Road Trip, an expedition that will eventually take us south to Cape Cod with our Higher Calling Wildlife® program and Gulf Great White Shark Society.

There’s something pretty special about getting to experience this with my family.

Standing high above the Maine coast together, looking across cold blue water, rocky shoreline, islands and seemingly endless forests, I couldn’t help but think about how different this great white habitat looks from the places I know so well along the Gulf Coast.

And later this week, our expedition gets another very special addition.

My wife Lisa checking out the view from Mount Battie on the beautiful Maine Coast.

Marina Wilson will join us for the Cape Cod portion of the trip. Marina is the recipient of the first-ever Gulf Great White Shark Society scholarship.

She has a tremendous interest in sharks, marine biology and wildlife conservation, and we’ll be giving her the opportunity to experience one of the most important great white shark research areas in North America.

That’s exactly what we hoped this scholarship could become.

It’s one thing to tell a young person to follow a dream. It’s another thing to help put her in a place where she can meet people doing the work, see the habitat firsthand and ask questions of scientists who have devoted their lives to understanding these incredible animals.