#36 Add Octopus Handler to my Resume

When I was in fourth grade, I saw a horror movie titled Tentacles. It was about a giant octopus causing mayhem and death wherever it went. I'm sure if I saw it now, I would laugh through the whole thing, but at the time -- it freaked the patooties out of me.

Ever since, I have had an unreasonable fear of octopuses*.

(*According to Grammarly.com, the correct plural form of Octopus is Octopuses, not Octopi as is commonly thought. Who knew?).

As I was doing my morning walk on the beach today, it was the lowest tide I have ever seen during this last year of beach walks. It was a glorious morning.

When facing to the east, I was in awe of the incrediblly beautiuful sunrise.

When I turned to the west, the grey storm clouds swirled around menacingly, but a wide vertical rainbow took away the gloom. I have never seen such a rainbow before -- it looked like a Skittles commerical where the rainbow was pouring down from the clouds. Breathtaking!

The wind was blowing furiously and the water was churning with dark blue waves that reminded me more of New England than Florida.

In all my walks along this beach over the past year, I continuously am surprised by what I see. One week, the beach might be covered with sand dollars. The next, it could be filled with gigantic mussel-type shells. Sometimes horseshoe crabs fill the shore and other times groups of sea urchins are washed up. There are times when things get washed up that I can't even identify!

I hoped that with the combination of the turbulant water and the low tide, I would be in for a great beachcombing treasure hunt. I was right!

It started out with some sea shell boys that were stranded way upfield from the shore's edge. I have seen plenty of these shells before but they have always been empty. This time, the living animals were still at home.

The long boy was lazily strolling along the sand and seemed really startled when I picked him up to get a good look at him.

The other guy had dehydrated himself into a gumdrop but still had some moxy. So I brought him back to the water -- he was a long, long way from home - and sure enough, he reconstituted, clamped his shell back together, and wiggled down into the sand.

I was getting close to the end of the beach when I saw a strange looking lump and realized it was a beached octopus! As I said earlier, I have some weird fears about these actually adorable and incredibly intelligent beings. I tentatively poked it with a shell to see if it was alive, and yes -- was he ever! His legs shot straight out and he started crawling around. I tried to encourage him to go back to the water and managed to help him roll back in but I had a gut feeling he wouldn't stay there. He looked kind of pissed that he was back in the water.

I decided that if he was so determined to go up on the beach, he had a right to do so and I kept on walking.

Because the tide was so low, I got to see parts of the beach that typically are unreachable, including the restricted area (that I scoped out thoroughly -- saw a bunch of oysters but not much else. Kind of disappointing, to be honest, but now I can say I am a badass tresspasser).

And, I got to see the shipwrecked boat that has been mostly underwater that Emily and I snorkeled around earlier in the year.

But I couldn't get my mind off of Squishy McSquiggles.

(That's what I named the octopus, by the way)

There could be no reason why an octupus would want to be up on the beach that I could think of. (When I got home I reasearched it, and according to Weird Nature, "Although many species of octopus can survive for limited times on land, octopuses beaching themselves is not common". And on Octolab, "The longer it is out of water, the greater the risk of it suffering damage to its gills. If outside for too long, an octoupus will die".) So decided if he was still marooned as I passed by him again, I would give the guy a hand and replant him in the water.

Sure enough, he was there, up on the beach, farther from the water than before...staring up at me with these big puppydog eyes.

I took a deep breath and touched his arm. He felt soft, a little slimyish and waved with his suction-cupped hand. Ok...we are friends.

Next step...how do I scoop him up without hurting him and without having to touch him. So I scooped up a ton of sand with him perched on top, and he tolerated being carried to the water on this sand chariot. I waded out into knee-deep water and gently placed him in. He swirled his legs around and jetted off.

This was a badass adventure for me because I was tackling my fears in order to help this wonderful animal live. I was scared but I pushed my fear down and jumped into the task at hand.

When I got home, I researched more about this sweet little guy. Here's what I learned:

1. About two-thirds of an octopus's neurons are located in its arms which means the arms can taste, touch and even act on their own accord without input from the brain.

2. They have three hearts. Two of them pump blood to its gills and the third keeps circulation flowing to the organs. This third heart stops every time the octopus is swimming which may explain why they prefer to crawl.

3. When scared, they can detach one of their arms and it will crawl off on its own as a trick to distract the preditor.

4. They can regrow a limb in as quick as a year.

5. They eat their arms when they are excessively bored.

6. They can open child-proof pill bottles.

7. They can change the color of their body in just three-tenths of a second.

8. When camouflaging themselves, they don't simply take on the general pattern of their surroundings. Instead it often mimics specific undersea objects, like plants or rocks, in order to disappear into the scenery.

Then I looked up, "What to do if you find an octopus on the beach". It reads, "If you encounter an octopus on the beach, make sure to give it the space it needs. These intelligent, curious animals are not normally aggressive toward people but will deliver a painful bite with their sharp beak if handled when they are feeling stressed out". Whoops! Good thing Squiggles and I were pals, I guess, but life lesson -- I won't pick one up again, even with a big old sand chariot.

I've been living here officially for a year now, and I am so grateful to live close to the beach. It's my medicine -- salt air in my nose and salt water on my feet is the cure for anything.

Best wishes, Sir Squishy McSquiggles! Thanks for the badass adventure.