My last diving tip to Catalina Island had a very narrow purpose: to catch an Octopus for my second tank. Friends Chris and Evelien, much more accomplished divers than I, had prepared by watching YouTube episodes on how to catch the to-prove-reclusive mollusc. They even had a homemade prod to encourage the creature out of its hole – a stick with a soft rubbery tip added. I had a net made of clear plastic, although I doubted it would fool any animal with decent eyesight, like an Octopus.
Our first dive was a warm-up in a protected MPRA. I had not been diving for a year and had to remember where all the important features were located on my BC. The second dive – in a proper zone under CDFW fishing Boom! Great visibility, and right away an Octopus arm slithering into a crack in the rock. It extended an arm once, just to mock us, and it was into its deep crack, never to bee seen again by us. OK, so no go, but seemed pretty easy to find another, right? Uh, no. In five shallow dives, so probably close to 5 hours underwater (or a total of 15 hours since there were three of us) not one other Octopus to be seen. I don’t doubt that we were seen BY Octopuses! We saw loads of oversized lobsters, 3 moray eels, one Horn Shark, one seal (which I really thought for a moment was a Giant Black Sea Bass..) one knobby sea star with blue haloed white spines, and many, many blue-banded gobies. Also, on our fist dive we were dived upon by a Fish and Game warden at 45 feet and free diving in his swim trunks! He held his camera up to “take” our picture, or at least to let us know they were watching and not to poach in the protected area. He tapped on my leg – my friend was right in front of me and never saw him.
All I can say is Octopus are very, very good at camouflage . So, no companion for my California Sea Hare yet. (I have it on reputable advice that an Octopus and a large Sea Hare may cohabitate. I’m pretty sure my sea hare will be much larger than any Octopus I get!)
I did add to my “trash” collection with 3 new bottles encrusted with purple coraline algae. One is a wine bottle. With the sea life equivalent to a ship in the bottle – clam shells grew inside the bottle to a larger-than-bottle-opening size.
Otherwise, I have had my first escape from my other aquarium, while we were gone. My house-sitter saw my cat had cornered a critter outside the room for my tanks. Thought it was a mouse, but surprise! A striped shore crab. I had some floating kelp that it must have utilized for its escape. Now, I tuck the kelp into the rocks, and have made a rocky dry area for the crabs to sit on. I live near the coast, but it’s a long way to the water – think “Finding Nemo”!
Next Tuesday should see the final tweaks to my tanks, with my larger one getting an upsized protein skimmer and some right sized water pumps. So excited that my ROS is fixed and my sand is not clean, without any algae.
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