Sunday, October 23 at Alki Cove II

We followed the bottom up from 100 feet after viewing the mermaid.  She awaits patiently in the cold depths of her murky realm as barnacles imprison her bronze skin.  Katie helped place her last summer.  As we passed through 60 feet I stopped to look around underneath the piled logs.  I thought Katie signaled to stop, but she continued up the grade.  I thought it was a starfish at first.  The out streched shape slowly floating down from the top of the logs, but that didn't make sense.  It descended to slow.  I came closer and realized it was a small octopus about 12 inches across.   Its tentacles were rolled up with its mantle laying on the silty bottom.  It seemed to sense me and unfurled one tentacle as I tentatively moved a finger towards it. 

Juvenile Giant Pacific Octopus

I looked around to show Katie and realized she was gone so I went up over the logs to get a better look at the octopus and take a picture.    I turned on my camera and 3 words appeared on the screen "Out of Memory".  Out of memory?  I have a 16 gigabyte memory card, safely at home installed in my computer.  The myriad of buttons on the back of my camera were not useful since they were not labelled.  I found that if you push enough of them you can eventually delete enough internal memory to take a picture.  After the photo shoot the octopus propelled it self up a few feet, took a look at me then settled itself back on the floor of the cove.  We hung out together for awhile until I realized my air was running low and I still had to swim up the slope to reach the shore with a safety stop on the way.

Our group found 2 other octopuses on the way down to visit the mermaid.  Apparently I looked right at them and didn't see them.  Or so they tell me.  As for myself, I saw a baby Giant Pacific Octopus and have the picture to prove it.