- Joined
- Apr 14, 2005
- Messages
- 5
Hi:
I was recently referred to this site by Steve Shea, who replied to my
email inquiry with the suggestion that the D&CE forum here would be
a good place to post the details of an encounter I had with two small
squid while snorkeling off the coast of Grenada in February 2003. I'm
not any kind of cephalopod expert, but rather somebody who's simply
been curious about these creatures since I was able to observe them
at very close range (less than 4 feet) for several minutes.
At some point within a month or two after my return from that vacation,
and also after some subsequent online research that failed to turn up
any photos or descriptions matching the animals, I contacted some
people and was eventually referred to a man named John Forsythe,
apparently an authority on Caribbean cephalopods; I talked with him
on the phone and, at his request, mailed him a drawing and notes on
everything I could recall about the encounter and the animals themselves. I mention this background stuff only to make clear that the
following particulars were things I noted down not very long afterward;
I should also mention that in my two conversations with Dr. Forsythe -
the one before I mailed him the stuff, and a followup conversation after
he received it - he made it fairly obvious (without coming right out and
saying so) that he didn't consider the info I provided as all that credible.
I mention this only in the spirit of full disclosure, and it should not -
repeat not - be construed as a criticism of Dr. Forsythe, who I think
only manifested a sensible degree of skepticism given that what I'd
described didn't correspond, he told me a number of times, with any
known species.
Here are the particulars: on February 10, 2003 in the morning I went
on a commercial half-day sailing/snorkeling excursion out of the harbor
of Grenada's capital, St. George. The vessel, a catamaran, sailed up
the west coast of the island, and late morning reached the site for
snorkeling, Moliniere Point. We were supposed to have an hour or
an hour and a half in the water, depending on time-in-transit on the
way up, conditions when we got there, etc. I had done some snorkeling
on previous vacations, and immediately felt disappointed once I got in
the water - a lot of the coral was dead, due I think to the runoff of
sediment from the land. There are pretty shallow depths and rocks
proceeding outward from the tip of the point, and with the (moderate)
chop I stayed to the south of this axis, the side that the boat had
anchored on. For an hour, plus or minus, I saw nothing at all but some
ordinary tropical fish and marine plants here and there, obviously trying to make a go of it in a tough, degraded environment (this despite one of the two crew guys eventually coming in, probably out of boredom, and pointing me toward this and that). Immediately south of the point and its extension of rocks there is a small cove, or at least a concave
shoreline, and this is where the squid appeared as I was heading back
to the boat, a little tired and cold, after an hour or so of nothing
remarkable. The first one appeared to my right as I was just desultorily
kicking with the flippers, arms trailing, on the surface: it was within
a foot or so of the surface itself and no more than a foot from what would have been my reach if I had tried to reach out with my arm (I'm
5'6"). I can't say where it came from - as I said it simply appeared -
but after the initial shock of registering what it was, and what it was doing (tracking me, apparently out of simple curiosity) I had the presence of mind to simply continue going along exactly as I had been: desultory kicking, trailing arms, same pace, etc. According to my notes for Dr. Forsythe from March or April 2003, the overall length was something like 7", the mantle approximately half of this overall length, gray with an olive cast to it, and with very small, unevenly-distributed (Milky Way-effect) iridescent blue spots, REALLY vivid. In my ignorance, before doing the subsequent online research, I thought, hey, cuttlefish, but then I learned that cuttlefish are more-or-less flat in cross-section, and these were not at all flat from what I could see, but had basically tubular (bullet-shaped) mantles and were therefore round in cross-section. I say "these", because within a minute or so
of my noticing the one on my right, peripherally I saw another one
on my LEFT, doing exactly the same thing, tracking me at the same
depth, and out of reach to the same extent. So . . . at that point they were flanking me on either side, and of course I could see only the left side of the one on my right and the right side of the one on my left.
-- It's after midnight here, and as I got very little sleep last night,
and have now become tired with the effort of putting this all as clearly as possible, I'm going to knock off; I hope to be able to find time to post the rest of the details of this encounter within a few days.
William Finnegan
I was recently referred to this site by Steve Shea, who replied to my
email inquiry with the suggestion that the D&CE forum here would be
a good place to post the details of an encounter I had with two small
squid while snorkeling off the coast of Grenada in February 2003. I'm
not any kind of cephalopod expert, but rather somebody who's simply
been curious about these creatures since I was able to observe them
at very close range (less than 4 feet) for several minutes.
At some point within a month or two after my return from that vacation,
and also after some subsequent online research that failed to turn up
any photos or descriptions matching the animals, I contacted some
people and was eventually referred to a man named John Forsythe,
apparently an authority on Caribbean cephalopods; I talked with him
on the phone and, at his request, mailed him a drawing and notes on
everything I could recall about the encounter and the animals themselves. I mention this background stuff only to make clear that the
following particulars were things I noted down not very long afterward;
I should also mention that in my two conversations with Dr. Forsythe -
the one before I mailed him the stuff, and a followup conversation after
he received it - he made it fairly obvious (without coming right out and
saying so) that he didn't consider the info I provided as all that credible.
I mention this only in the spirit of full disclosure, and it should not -
repeat not - be construed as a criticism of Dr. Forsythe, who I think
only manifested a sensible degree of skepticism given that what I'd
described didn't correspond, he told me a number of times, with any
known species.
Here are the particulars: on February 10, 2003 in the morning I went
on a commercial half-day sailing/snorkeling excursion out of the harbor
of Grenada's capital, St. George. The vessel, a catamaran, sailed up
the west coast of the island, and late morning reached the site for
snorkeling, Moliniere Point. We were supposed to have an hour or
an hour and a half in the water, depending on time-in-transit on the
way up, conditions when we got there, etc. I had done some snorkeling
on previous vacations, and immediately felt disappointed once I got in
the water - a lot of the coral was dead, due I think to the runoff of
sediment from the land. There are pretty shallow depths and rocks
proceeding outward from the tip of the point, and with the (moderate)
chop I stayed to the south of this axis, the side that the boat had
anchored on. For an hour, plus or minus, I saw nothing at all but some
ordinary tropical fish and marine plants here and there, obviously trying to make a go of it in a tough, degraded environment (this despite one of the two crew guys eventually coming in, probably out of boredom, and pointing me toward this and that). Immediately south of the point and its extension of rocks there is a small cove, or at least a concave
shoreline, and this is where the squid appeared as I was heading back
to the boat, a little tired and cold, after an hour or so of nothing
remarkable. The first one appeared to my right as I was just desultorily
kicking with the flippers, arms trailing, on the surface: it was within
a foot or so of the surface itself and no more than a foot from what would have been my reach if I had tried to reach out with my arm (I'm
5'6"). I can't say where it came from - as I said it simply appeared -
but after the initial shock of registering what it was, and what it was doing (tracking me, apparently out of simple curiosity) I had the presence of mind to simply continue going along exactly as I had been: desultory kicking, trailing arms, same pace, etc. According to my notes for Dr. Forsythe from March or April 2003, the overall length was something like 7", the mantle approximately half of this overall length, gray with an olive cast to it, and with very small, unevenly-distributed (Milky Way-effect) iridescent blue spots, REALLY vivid. In my ignorance, before doing the subsequent online research, I thought, hey, cuttlefish, but then I learned that cuttlefish are more-or-less flat in cross-section, and these were not at all flat from what I could see, but had basically tubular (bullet-shaped) mantles and were therefore round in cross-section. I say "these", because within a minute or so
of my noticing the one on my right, peripherally I saw another one
on my LEFT, doing exactly the same thing, tracking me at the same
depth, and out of reach to the same extent. So . . . at that point they were flanking me on either side, and of course I could see only the left side of the one on my right and the right side of the one on my left.
-- It's after midnight here, and as I got very little sleep last night,
and have now become tired with the effort of putting this all as clearly as possible, I'm going to knock off; I hope to be able to find time to post the rest of the details of this encounter within a few days.
William Finnegan
William; nice to see your post. I look forward to the sketch you mentioned.
