A Tale of Two Octopuses

By The Marine Detective on June 30, 2023

Here’s a tale of two octopuses, recounted from a recent dive.

But first a little background:

Giant Pacific Octopuses must see we human divers, far, far, FAR more often than we see them. They are so good at camouflage!

There are sometimes good clues they are near.

A really helpful clue is that their homes (dens) have the remains of their dinners thrown out in front i.e. middens of shells from crabs and bivalves like scallops.

If the octopus is shedding their suckers, you will also have the clue of seeing little “flakes” coming from the den. See my blog about that at this link.

They are of course easier to see if on the move. When a Giant Pacific Octopus is hunting, there sometimes is an entourage of rockfish too, hoping to benefit when the octopus flushes out the other fish and shrimp from between rocks.

But otherwise, you just have to have the luck to realize the rock you are looking at has eyes with
remarkable pupils.

Now the tale of two octopuses on one dive:

Now that I’ve emphasized how difficult it can be to detect an octopus, let me share the joy of seeing two Giant Pacific Octopus within 5 minutes.

Octopus #1 was out on a ledge. You can see how small this one is from the relative size to my dive buddy, Natasha.

I saw Octopus #2 about 4 minutes after seeing the first octopus. We were still blissed out from that encounter. Then, I saw a big arm reach for a Kelp Greenling (fish).

I think I may have shouted in surprise. The fish darted away because of my reaction I think. I am truly sorry dear octopus for spoiling your dinner. I didn’t mean to!

This Giant Pacific Octopus remained motionless other than their siphons (vents) opening and closing to breathe, billowing water in and out.

I got lost for a little while in trying to capture the beauty of this giant and their environment – Black Rockfish swimming above, the pink crusts of coralline algae, Orange Cup Corals, a hermit crab, Wrinkled Amphissa snails.

Time and air passed a lot faster than I realized, or wanted. To the surface, we needed to go. I left wondering when I would next see a Giant Pacific Octopus out in the open again. The Giant Pacific Octopus was probably left hoping some weirdo-looking creature doesn’t spoil their dinner again.

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About estimated Giant Pacific Octopus growth rate:
When they hatch from eggs as plankton, they are about the size of a grain of rice. They have to grow incredibly quickly to become giants, only having a lifespan of about 3 years. From Jim Cosgrove and Neil McDaniel’s great book “Super Suckers”: They start at ~0.03 grams (0.0011 oz) and grow to 20–40 kg (44–88 lb) at adulthood = an increase of around 0.9% per day.

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Photos of the two Giant Pacific Octopuses are from a dive on April 11, 2023, Browning Pass when with God’s Pocket Resort. On this dive, I had even more gratitude than usual for my dive buddy Natasha Dickinson. I’ve been having big problems with the strobes of my camera and she helped by providing lighting for these photos.