Eight-Legged Dive Buddy
Yesterday . . . Browning Wall off NE Vancouver Island . . . . . a few minutes in my life.
A few minutes that fuels me in a way that I can never fully express. It’s why I have to take pictures.
And by sharing, I hope the NE Pacific Ocean opens up to more people; that there is more awareness of our marine neighbours and our connection to them.
They’re living their lives just below the surface, most often hidden in the dark planktonic soup that sustains them. We humans are most often on the other side; living our lives too often in the dark about our connection to them and how we are also dependent on Mother Ocean as the life sustaining force on the planet.
It’s a world of colour, mystery, marvel and surprise.
Okay, that’s enough words. Here are the photos of a few minutes in my life where I was graced by the presence of marine royalty.
We were ascending slowly to our safety stop (scuba divers spend at least 3 minutes at 5m/15′ to offload nitrogen). On the way, at around 10m depth I stopped, striving to “capture” the beauty of the fish with the surface of the Ocean visible above them.
The view at about 10 metres . ©Jackie Hildering.
I was smiling at the China Rockfish and Puget Sound Rockfish using the sponge as a couch. Here’s a close-up.
See the Puget Sound Rockfish’s head poking out between the sponges? ©Jackie Hildering.
I looked to the right and saw that I was being watched. There, fully out in the open was a Giant Pacific Octopus.
Giant Pacific Octopus watching me. ©Jackie Hildering.
I stared in awe for a little bit and then had to proceed to my safety stop. I was accompanied by the octopus.
Eight-Legged Dive Buddy! ©Jackie Hildering.
Eight-Legged Dive Buddy walking to 5m depth beside me! ©Jackie Hildering.
Together, we advanced to 5m. S/he tolerating the flashing of my camera and me trying to find some balance between documenting this experience and living it.
When we reached safety stop depth, off the giant jetted into the depths. With the octopus having descended deeper into the Ocean in which its kind have lived for some 500 million years, this human needed to return to the environment of air where our ancestors strived to start walking upright only about 6 million years ago (with Homo sapiens only dating back ~200,000 years ago).
I was left at 5m depth with 3 minutes to think about the marvel of what had just happened and how I might make the experience count in some way.
This was the view.
View towards the surface. ©Jackie Hildering.
The Marine Detective 
8 Responses to “Eight-Legged Dive Buddy”
What an awesome encounter! Thanks so much for sharing it with the world! 👏👏👍👍🤗🤗
wonderous!
Your photos do this experience justice! Thank-you for sharing with us.
Whooo while all those shots are amazing loving the last two!!!
Whooo loving those last two shots!! All great – the last two whooo
Loved this, thanks for sharing!
Such beautiful pics of our underworld. I had the experience of diving with a giant octopus once at Port Hardy. Will never forget how unique they are…thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much for the comment and shared experience.