Aboard the R/V Pacific Storm, Santa Rosalia, Baja California Sur, Mexico. We expected no squid in the morning, because our tagging work has consistently shown that they spend daytime at depths of at least 600 feet. So, after we finished our sonar experiments at anchor, we measured several oxygen profiles over deep water in our regular Santa Rosalia study area – part of our efforts to document seasonal variations in that low-0xygen environment, as well as squid behavior and food supply. Just before dusk we started to jig for squid to fill the live-tanks for another experimental round. We had also arranged to work with a local fisherman in a panga to tag 2 more large squid with pop-up satellite tags, because the Pacific Storm is a bit too high up off the water for tagging.

It was a perfect plan – Unai, Ashley and I would tag from the panga for an hour or so while the Pacific Storm crew would visualize free-swimming squid on the sonar and catch them to determine size. But this night there were simply no squid -- anywhere. We tried at least 6 different spots in the panga but caught only 2 squid (though one was large enough for tagging and was tagged successfully). The Pacific Storm caught only 1 squid (Stanford U. grad student Danna Shulman, in the photo below, was the successful fisher) and saw 2 others at the surface. We gave the squid to one of the pangas hanging around hoping for a repeat of the previous night. But it never happened – the squid seemed to have disappeared. The pangas went home empty by 9 p.m.