Guaymas, Mexico. [ed. note – the author is Ashley Booth, Bill Gilly’s Lab Tech. Here's her account of the last leg of their squid expedition.]

I accompanied the squidding crew and this is my telling of the last leg of our journey. When we disembarked from the R/V Pacific Storm [Oregon State University’s research vessel], we had a couple of days to collect our thoughts and have a changing of the guards. Danna Shulman returned home and our postdoc, Lou Zeidberg, flew down. Then we loaded up one of the CIBNOR ships [Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas de Noroeste - our Mexican sister institution] for an epic chase for our drifting satellite tags. We had tagged several squid with computers that record their depth and ambient water conditions that are programmed to release after a designated time. They then float to the surface and emit a GPS signal so we can go pick them up--easier said than done.

The winds and surface currents whisk these little floats far from where they pop up, sometimes up to 50 miles in one day, the satellites only give a position reading every half-hour to an hour, and they are nearly impossible to see until the boat is on top of them. Then the large ship needs to be maneuvered so that a dip net (with only an 8 foot pole) can scoop it up. Then add adverse conditions and you have quite a big job cut out for you.

Our departure time was delayed due to high winds, and we watched our two tags drift further and further away. Finally, we were able to board the boat. The chase was on.

We captured one tag that was caught in a giant gyre half way between Guaymas and Santa Rosalía, and the other we pursued south almost to Topolobampo, about 180 miles from Guaymas! The map below shows where the squid were tagged (green triangle), where the tags popped off (green circle), where we captured them (red squares), and the distance they drifted (grey circles).

Thanks to the keen eyes of the CIBNOR crew we found both tags. Below is a photo taken after we had captured one of the tags--from left to right: Cesar Salinas, our CIBNOR collogue; Lou Zeidberg; and two CIBNOR crew members--the small tag is pictured in the center.

We spent the rest of our cruise back in calm waters and good squid fishing. Unai Markaida collected squid stomachs for his continued studies on Dosidicus gigas diet [That’s us below processing our samples- Unai, Myself (Ashley), and Araceli Ramos Montiel, a friend of Unai’s in the fishery department].

After we made port, Gilly and I packed up his old truck for our long drive back to Monterey. We made a detour to Bahía Kino on our way up to visit Prescott College’s Marine Station and its administrative coordinator, Tad Pfister. During our tour, we made exciting new connections between the biology of squid and their predators, sperm whales and opened up new avenues for continued research.

After raising a couple of eyebrows at the boarder with a 10 inch long squid in a large Coke bottle filled with formaldehyde, Gilly and I pressed on to California, tired but with a feeling of accomplishment at the success of our three weeks in Mexico. On to the next adventure…and it is always an adventure in the Gilly lab.