As usual, Madrona Point off Vancouver Island was infested with GPOs

[Tom Hlavac]

 

[Tom Hlavac]

I observed 10, and I think there are 8 of those in the clips in this video - the dive was 51 minutes, max depth 98 fsw. Mostly Dungeness crab in the den litter, there were some cockles and moon snail shells. Very few Chlamys spp. Largest was 45 lbs, (21-22 kg).

 

[Hrtland_Patriot]

Does your being there scare them?

 

[Tom Hlavac]

Does your being there scare them?

Appears not - often, they will leave their dens when a diver approaches and inspect a diver, even when that diver is one of a group. The GPOs - even smaller (under 10kg) - sometimes will reach out a tentacle to "taste" a diver, and that may escalate to the octopus crawling all over the diver. Occasionally, a larger octopus (over 60-70kg) has scared me - they are very strong, and when you are down to the last few bar of gas, you don't want to be anchored to the bottom by one. Especially if solo diving.