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"First Approach" Descending to investigate an odd shape I discover a Giant Pacific Octopus. |
Encounter With a Gentle Giant
Article and Photos by Marc
Shargel Marc Shargel is an underwater photographer and multimedia producer. |
It isn’t a credible story. It would normally be put on the same dust shelf with those ancient sailors’ tales of Kraken and other sea monsters that drag ships down to dimly lit, salty blue graves. And I wouldn’t expect anyone to believe it. Except that I was carrying a camera at the time. |
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Here’s what happened. On a beautiful, calm day at Point Lobos State Reserve, near Carmel, CA, we dropped anchor on Outer Bluefish Pinnacle. Following the anchor line down to 55 or 60', I watched Frank position the hook properly. As I turned back, and looked down into a large, broad "V" shaped juncture of rock, I saw a regularly patterned shape. It was mauve or tannish. What’s this, I thought. Derelict fish net? Not in Pt Lobos, marine reserve, and the shape is perfectly symmetrical, oval with one pointed end. My curiosity piqued, I sank deeper to investigate more closely. The oval “shape” had eyes on top, and pulsed slowly. A head. It was quite large, slightly bigger than a basketball, and had arms... with suction disks on them. I was eye to eye with what could only be a Giant Pacific Octopus (Octopus dofleini).
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Of course I had the wrong lens on my camera to shoot such a big subject, a 60mm macro. Everyone who’s taken pictures under water knows this as “Murphy’s Law of Underwater Photography.” You’ll see that tiny rare fish the size of your pinkie finger only when set up to shoot whales. I’d planned this day expecting to do fish portraiture, or perhaps take close-ups of small jellies. I couldn’t fit much more than half of this huge octopus into the frame! I tried to get Frank and the octopus in one frame, but he couldn’t manage to get deep enough into the rocky canyon. The octopus didn’t react to our presence at all, didn’t react to the bright flashes from my strobes. Although all octopi are masters of disguise, capable of changing the color and the texture of their skin at will, this one didn’t change color. His (her?) skin remained a pattern of raised, elongated bumps, oriented from the arms to the pointy end of its head. It was that pattern and the point in the oval of the head that had first alerted me to something unusual. |
| I’ve been thinking for maybe 20 years about encountering this animal, about doing a sub-marine dance with one of these giants. They are regularly found in the colder waters of Puget Sound or British Columbia. Every time I’ve seen pictures from that region, I’ve thought, I must go dive there, to meet the giant octopi. Once, in about 1980, while diving at Point Lobos, I looked into a crack and saw an odd string of circles, each one larger than a nickel. The circles were on a fleshy arm, and I realized I was certainly looking at the arm of one of these giants. But this one was concealed in a crack only a couple inches wide: I could see no more of it. My buddy had swum ahead, and this was before I’d ever used an UW camera, and so it was nothing more than an outrageous claim, an incredible but indelible memory. |
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Today, face to face with a Giant Pacific Octopus that was out in the open in the juncture of rocks, I was unable to resist the temptation to realize a two decade old wish. First I checked that Frank was still watching us, me and the octopus. Slowly, tentatively, I extended a rubber-gloved hand toward the huge animal. It continued its pulsing respirations. I reached further. No reaction. I touched an arm with one fingertip, and the nearest sucker disk reached for the fingertip, covered it, and held on. A couple more fingers made contact and were similarly grasped. I was holding hands with an alien. I pulled back a bit, but was held firmly. Hmm. I pulled back more, and the suction grip was popped free. Still, the octopus didn’t move, didn’t change color or texture. I repeated the touch, with the same response. |
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Finally my computer warned I was out of time, I had to get closer to the surface. The shallows this day were alive with jellies: brown jellies, purple striped jellies, moon jellies, comb jellies, and siphonophores. Days with such an abundance and variety of jellies are a rare treat. But the octopus had completely dominated my senses, and exhausted my film. Frank and I returned to that same cleft of rock just over two hours later, but the octopus had moved on, showing me just how special the encounter was. |
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Pt. Lobos State Reserve includes a marine protected area that is home to marine mammals, invertebrates and countless species of fish native to our waters. The park is limited to 15 teams of divers per day, which is monitored by a reservation system. To find out more about Pt. Lobos, or how to make dive reservations, visit their website at http://pt-lobos.parks.state.ca.us or call 831-624-8413.
Web sites with information related to this article: Dr. James B. Wood's Cephalopod Page Online Cephalopod Database The lenged of the Kraken. |