...while harvesting sea urchins, on the northwest coast of Washington state, work performed underwater, in dive gear. Once in particular I remember facing a vertical rock wall, in about 25 feet of water, with strong back-and-forth surge present from the swells rolling in overhead. In one hand I held onto a large net bag, able to contain about 300 pounds of urchins (although of course they were nearly neutrally buoyant underwater), in the other I held an "urchin rake", something like large tongs for grabbing urchins from the rocks to which they clung and placing them into the net bag. As I pulled the last urchin off the rock in front of me, I noticed that there remained a dinner-plate sized mound of frilly green sponge, right in front of my face, looking for all the world like any other similar mound of frilly green sponge, except this one was looking back at me! No kidding, this clump of sponge was actually making eye contact with me, as calmly as possible, from only about 10 inches away. And it had the most beautiful, alien eyes you could imagine, with odd, hourglass-shaped pupils, and golden irises. But there was no question it was looking me in the eye as intently as I was looking it in the eye.

I realized right away it was an octopus, perched on the rock, attached to the vertical surface in strongly surging currents by the vacuum power of its suckers. Its 8 arms were coiled with perfectly symmetrical neatness all around its head and body, reminding me exactly of how a cat will sit contentedly with its front paws curled under its chin.

I couldn't believe that it watched me from a few inches away without apparent alarm; I'm certain it had never seen a human diver before; no one but urchin harvesters would dive on this hazardous coast, and the area had never been harvested before. I wondered if perhaps it thought that it was simply too well camoflaged for me to detect it, as may well be the case with the usual fish and crabs it encounters. So I reached out my wet-suit gloved finger and as gently as possible I touched it, actually petting it on the head, above and between its eyes. And without any sign of haste or anxiety, it uncurled just one of its arms and reached out and touched me back, wrapping several inches of tentacle around my black rubbery hand.

I couldn't believe it, and I still ponder the apparent self-possession and, yes, intelligence of that animal. Consider how I must have looked to it; a 200 pound black-rubber suited air breather, huffing and puffing while constantly fighting with my finned feet to stay in one spot against the ceaseless surging of the water around me. It must have been watching me for 10 -- 15 minutes as I worked to clear the wall of urchins by transferring them to my bag, until I ultimately drew so close to it that I pulled off the last urchins surrounding it. And it remained calmly immobile throughout my approach; I can only think it must have been riveted by curiosity, and so infrequently preyed on that it felt no fear, not considering me to be a threat. Since it displayed no obvious fear, I must guess that the unbelievable perfection of its camoflage was not for its protection but to aid it in finding its own prey, commonly crabs.

It might have stayed where I found it indefinately if I hadn't gotten more aggressive with wanting to touch it further, and I think I finally made it nervous; it uncurled itself completely, and quickly, but with sublime grace, and glided rapidly away across the rough rock wall, seeming not to touch it, although I know it must have been gripping it continuously to avoid being swept away by the surge currents. In a few seconds it had disappeared.

And that is my octopus story. And I would say that this animal had regarded me with more thoughtfulness than any cat or dog ever had.

That was excellent.

Thank you for taking the time to tell about a great experience.

I have no doubt that curiosity is an actual part of intelligence which is also a part of a thought process.

This must have been a singularly thought provoking event for you as well as the octopus.
I wonder about its memory as in, would it remember you and/or the exchange between the two of you?
Now, THAT would be electrifying.

USNVETERAN: "curiosity is an actual part of intelligence..."

LeRoy: There is cause for concern about America, then, inasmuch as so many of our fellow citizens seem to be rather amazingly incurious.

I used to keep a marine aquarium and wanted an octopus but after hearing how difficult is it to keep them in the tank I gave up. Everyone I spoke to told me that if there is the smallest opening the octopus will go through it even if it cannot survive. After watching video of an octopus leaving the tank it was housed in to eat the crabs from an adjacent tank, then returning to the first tank, I often wondered if the ones escaping from the aquarium tried to get back in

My wife and I have met a few octopi, and squid, too. The octopi were Little Browns and they were on reefs off Maui. One, who was alone, played hide and seek with us in a cauliflower coral head. It would pop up in a crevice, we would touch it, it would slip into the head and pop up in another crevice - we repeated this until we got bored after about 15 minutes. A few days later, one flew over our heads as we swam over a coral ridge and it land on a lower ridge, went through a bunch of color changes and then looked like the background. All of a sudden, another octopus came "spiraling" down the ridge toward the first - its tentacles actually formed what looked like a helical fan and propelled it that way. It then stopped about a foot from the first and inserted a differently shaped tentacle into the body of the first. They didn't mind us watching at all, only 3 feet away. What a cascade of colors! Octopus love.

On Eden Rock, in Georgetown, Grand Cayman, we came across a "conga line" of 17 young Caribbean Reef Squid. For the next 1/2 hr. we played with them. We split the line and they dispersed, then they formed the line in exactly the same order as it initially was. How do we know? Because they were graded by size. The largest in front and the smallest at the end. No matter how often we dispersed them the immediately reformed the line. The "leader" kept its tentacles up in what we found out was a characteristic pose. We herded them to the edge of the reef, which they didn't mind, until we all got to the edge of the deep dropoff. Then they got upset and dispersed back to the shallows and reformed the line. We were sure that they thought it was dangerous out in the blue. We did some more, but you would be bored to read of it and it wasn't exactly an "experiment", but, anytime you meet up with a cephalopod, you get convinced there is somebody inside that body.