It's a great story and I love the video and stills ... but if you dive around Giant Pacific Octopus regularly it can be much more than a once in a lifetime experience. GPO's are pretty smart, and although I can't resist the urge to anthropomorphize, I'm convinced they have individual "personalities". Most times they don't react at all to divers ... I've been on "walkabout" with one much larger than the one in the video and it completely ignored me, even though I swam alongside and quite close for several minutes, taking pictures till my strobe batteries died. Other times they'll react as this one did ... either aggressively or simply seeming curious. A couple years ago a diver I know quite well got a video of one as it grabbed ahold of her camera ... you can hear the squeaks and squeals of the housing as it's being compressed by the tentacles, and she was fortunate it didn't break the o-ring seal ... a testament to the strength and durability of an expensive housing. Several years ago there was one living at the bottom of the jetty at Keystone, Whidbey Island (Washington) that relieved more than one diver of their camera. You see, octopus don't have eyelids, and their eyes are designed for darkness, so those strobes and video lights are not comfortable.
These divers had a great experience ... my friend Claudette, who is also from California, had one wrap several of its tentacles around her head and face on her very first encounter with a GPO. TSandM and a couple other friends "assisted" the octopus in letting go of her, worried that the tentacles might somehow remove her regulator at a bad time. But like these guys, all went well and she came out of the water absolutely thrilled.
These are amazing animals that ... like a lot of wild creatures ... are misrepresented in popular media. For the most part they're reclusive and solitary creatures. An encounter with one isn't really all that rare if you dive in areas like the Pacific Northwest or down along the west coast, where they're commonly found. But it is the highlight of a dive ... and under the right circumstances can be the memory of a lifetime. I envy these guys for getting it captured in video.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
