Acapulco Harbor, Mexico

There probably isn’t a harbor in Mexico more impacted by tourism and development than Acapulco. We pull into the stunningly beautiful harbor and sample in front of an area of high rise hotels. The depth of the spot we sampled is only 40 feet, so we just take a surface water sample. Of particular interest to our collaborators is the viral fraction, so we spend the rest of the afternoon concentrating the 200 liters of harbor down to 1 liter of viral concentrate, which will be further concentrated back at our institute in La Jolla.