Northwest Dive Club

I went for a dip to visit the man but I couldn't say hi to him because Octozilla was standing guard. Every time I got withing ten feet of Octozilla he started to come towards me to say "hi" but I wasn't in the mood to shake hands. I apologize for the crappy lighting. H2Odoctor will have the solution ready for me soon. It's hard to be steady with the GOPRO in one hand and the Aqua Sun in the other. This is my second video with the GOPRO and a proper tray and lights will make things much easier with better results.
The vis was almost 20' and not much current till the end of the dive when the wind changed directions.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4WnNbD5 ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]

Matt: Thanks for posting the video. After we passed you as you were coming out, we swam out to the satellite dish but octozilla was gone. We went to the Livingston (the smaller overturned boat) and there it was, happily putting on a show. It's interesting that it shows so little fear. We missed the wolf eel - good sighting. We did see several alabaster nudibranchs and the lumpsucker, swimming furiously with his tiny fins and getting nowhere. I think Paul got photos of everything. Paul noted that the wind generated current while strong at the surface was non-existent at depth (100+ ft). Since Paul recently graduated from the UW in ocean sciences, it was neat to see that nature conforms with the theory.
-Curt

So I'm curious, appx. what depth did you see Octozilla? Thinking about taking the video cam there this weekend to see if we can film him.

I was there last weekend and the octo was first just sitting out in the open at 38 feet and then followed us down to the geo dome 55ft? and it hung out there with us for a little while before wandering off. It was not overly friendly to us and kept its distance maybe 8 to 10 feet away. It is a nice size octo. Nice to see it at Muk.

Wow for 55' it looks awful dark on that log. But the vis looks pretty good at the dome. Looks like you saw a lot on that dive, or is that a mix of day/night dives?

sheahanmcculla wrote:Wow for 55' it looks awful dark on that log. But the vis looks pretty good at the dome. Looks like you saw a lot on that dive, or is that a mix of day/night dives?

I'm not the OP so my 55' observation may not apply to his post of the octo on the log. I was just guessing at the depth of the geo dome where I and my partner last saw the octo a few days prior to OP. And yes, the vis does look pretty nice at the dome in his video. What a treat. The vis was not as nice on our dive.

I believe Octozilla is the one that hangs out at the boat near the satellite dish. Depth is approx. 100 -110 ft - today at a lower tide the depth was about 103. We went straight to the boat and hung out with it until my alarm went off to head shallower. It put on a great show for us. Stretched out a tentacle along the back end of the boat so we could gauge it - looked like the tentacle was about 6 ft long, assuming the boat is about 5 ft wide.

I found the big guy sitting on a log just East of the satellite dish at 112 fsw. If your unfamiliar with this site I can give easy directions on how to get there. He is usually hanging out on the upside down skiff on the way to the dish. Even if the vis looks bad at the surface Muk usually clears up nicely below 45-60 fsw. Good hunting if you go looking to film him!

All of this video was shot on the same day except for the orange juvenile wolfeel and the rat fish. Those were shot in late November.

Nice video and Thanks for the tips.
I have just one dumb question: which way to the satellite dish? I know how to find the geodome, thats pretty much straight out from the shore steps. But to find the sunken little boat / satellite dish / log which heading to swim? Any info is greatly appreciated.

Mike: I have two ways to find the satellite dish. Neither is very specific. One way is to surface swim to the buoy and drop down to the sunken boat. From the sunken boat swim about 50 ft SW (up the slope and towards the ferry). You will come upon "the man" and the satellite dish. The other way I get there is to swim to the west end of the safety line, follow the log pointing north and keep going, working a little to the east and you run into it at about 110 ' depth. People also find it from the geodome, but I will let someone else explain that. Or PM me and I will take you there.
-Curt

Thanks. This info helps.

Larry and I went to visit octozilla at the upside down skiff and found him clinging to the side. Larry looked up inside the boat and there's another octopus (possibly a future octomomma?) hanging out there. Octozilla didn't seem to like him looking under the boat at his girl and started to work his way towards Larry so we figured we'd better leave them alone!
From there we went to the geodome looking for wolfeels but weren't able to find any. We did a pretty thorough search but no luck. Question is -have they all moved on or did we just miss them?

Kathy: I suspect the wolf eels just weren't showing themselves. We looked for them as well with no luck, but people going in ahead of us and afterwards saw them.
-Curt

to find the dish from the geo dome... just head straight down ... and a little to the left..

Thanks all for the tips. I'm planning on splashing this weekend and hope to get some video of the octo.