Tasty Sucker

People ask why I like octopuses so much, and I usually start with the facts.

An octopus has three hearts. Its blood is blue. It has a central brain and then a good part of its nervous system spread through the arms, so each arm can work on a problem without checking with head office. It can taste with its suckers. It can change colour and texture in under a second, and it does this, as far as anyone can tell, while being colour-blind. It can get its whole body through any hole bigger than its beak.

A giant Pacific octopus, the kind in the water off Vancouver Island, lives three to five years. All of that brain and it gets about as long as a phone contract.

I'm a diver, and a few years ago I was on a dive in cold green water when my buddy pointed their light at a crack in a rock wall. There was a pile of empty crab shells below it, which is how you find them. They're messy eaters and they throw the dishes out the front door.

I got in close. At first there was nothing in the crack but a pale curve with a row of suckers on it. Then an eye. The pupil is a horizontal bar, like a slot for a coin, and it was pointed at me.

We looked at each other for a while. I held on to the rock and tried to breathe quietly, which isn't easy with a regulator in your mouth.

Then one arm came out. Slowly, just the tip. It crossed the few centimetres between us, touched the back of my glove, and stayed there. I could feel the suckers working through the neoprene. It was tasting me. It was finding out what I was.

It took about ten seconds to decide. Then the arm slid back into the rock. I don't know what it concluded.