BAHIA DE LOS ANGELES, Mexico — Two researchers, including one of the top arachnid experts in the world, were missing off the coast of Baja California early Wednesday following a boat accident that killed three of their colleagues.
The other four people on the expedition from the University of California at Davis stayed alive by swimming for hours through the thrashing Gulf of California to reach land.
"It all happened within a couple of minutes," said Gary Huxel, 38, a postdoctorate researcher in ecology who survived Monday's capsizing. The waves "just pounded us."
Two boats of students and faculty were returning to this small village about 300 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border after conducting research on scorpions and spiders on Isla Cabeza de Caballo. The island is four miles offshore.
Winds up to 30 mph caused one boat to fill with water and capsize, survivors said. The other boat, which had become separated in 6-foot waves, returned to port before realizing its companion craft was missing. After a brief search, the research team reported the 22-foot inflatable boat missing Monday night.
Clinging to the overturned craft were Huxel and UC students Sarah Ratay, Becca Lewison and Ralph Haygood.
After hanging on for a couple of hours, the waves forced them to swim away with life jackets or seat cushions. They became separated during the next several hours, Huxel ending up on one island, the rest on another.
"The water was so strong we couldn't stay together," Huxel said.
They were rescued by Mexican authorities Tuesday, sunburned, exhausted and emotionally spent. Huxel spoke only briefly before retreating with the other members of the expedition.
Still missing were Gary Polis, whose arachnid research has appeared in top-tier scientific journals such as Nature and Ecology as well as on television and in magazines. The other person was not immediately identified.
The U.S. Coast Guard and the Mexican navy planned to resume the search Wednesday. Huxel said he last saw Polis clinging to the overturned boat, which was recovered Tuesday.
The bodies of graduate student Mike Rose and two visiting Japanese scholars, Tayuka Abe and Masaiko Higashi, were recovered Tuesday and taken to the town of San Quintin, university officials said.
Polis, an ecologist who specializes in food web dynamics, came to Davis two years ago from Vanderbilt University and traveled to Bahia de los Angeles three or four times a year for research.
Situated in a rugged desert, the village is a tiny collection of hotels and tourist campgrounds popular with sports fishermen, kayakers and wildlife biologists.
The nearby waters are known for biological diversity, as well as for unpredictable and strong winds, said John O'Sullivan, a biological specimen collector for California's Monterey Bay Aquarium who lives in this Mexican town of 800 people.
The area in the Gulf of California attracts a large number of whales, squid and other species. Its remote, arid islands are home to species of lizards and snakes, as well as certain types of spiders and scorpions found nowhere else on earth, O'Sullivan said.
Because of the area's remoteness, many boaters don't have access to the type of up-to-date weather information available in larger cities, O'Sullivan said.
"You just don't boat at the first signs of those west winds," O'Sullivan said. "When the west wind blows, you just stay put. A lot of boats get blown off their moorings."
On the Net: University of California, Davis: www.ucdavis.edu
U.S. Coast Guard: www.uscg.mil