miracle on the full moon

   On August 24, 2010, Guillaume Simmonet, Bryan Rivard, John Russel and myself went on our normal Tuesday night dive, except this night turned out to be anything but ordinary. Our typical route of late has been to descend along the boundary line separating the dive site from the ferry dock, and continue down to about 100'. From about 90" to roughly 120', there are three big log bundles; one parallel to the boundary line, and the other two slightly deeper and perpendicular to the line. After leaving those logs bundles, we cut across the cove to the south, making our way back over a loop towards the Honeybear wreck, and then out of the water. The trip across the cove often yields lots of red octopus, stubby squid and grunt sculpins, however on this night the highlight of the dive was back at the log piles.
     Under these logs, several Giant Pacific Octopus have taken up residence, one of which has been sitting on eggs for well over six months. The life cycle of the Giant Pacific Octopus is a short and solitary one; octopuses live alone except to mate, and then only once before they die. Once fertilized the female returns to her den and attaches several long strands of rice shaped eggs to the ceiling and tends to them until she dies. She never leaves, never eats, her only focus is to guard her nest as long as she can in hopes that her eggs survive long enough to hatch. Depending on water temperature, she will stay with her brood anywhere from four to six months, aerating them by blowing water on them with her syphon and guarding them against would-be snackers. Once the eggs are about to hatch, she, now deathly white in color, will leave the den and die, as a final sacrifice she uses her body to draw predators away from her now vulnerable offspring.
     It was on that very night that she finally died, and we arrived just in time to watch hundreds of thousands of baby octopuses stream away into the night. Even with part of the egg sack still attached, these baby octos were scarcely the size of your pinky nail, and already had fully functioning chromataphores. (specialized skin cells capable of changing color) To see such a miracle of nature was truly humbling. I was filled with bittersweet excitement as I watched the babies stream away; fully conscious that perhaps only one or two of them might make it to adulthood.
   We finally bade the babies and dutiful mother goodbye, had it not been a limiting factor of gas and a rising decompression obligation I would have stayed until the last baby swam away. The dive ended just as beautifully as it began, we surfaced just in time to watch the full moon rise above the Seattle skyline. It was a fateful night indeed; as I got out of the water, I ran into my friend Koos Du Preez who coincidentally had his HD video camera. I tipped him off as to where to go, and he got some absolutely amazing footage of the octo babies in action.
here's the link to Koos' video