I was living on a 40 foot sailboat, I rented for a year, and had the opportunity to make a friend that I didn’t take. It is one of the few things in my life that I would change if I could.

The boat I lived on was kept in a slip in Newport Beach, California. I was renting it for only $50 a month because the owners had two, full-size, Standard poodles aboard that I was looking after, while they were on a year-long teaching assignment out of the country. I took the two dogs for a walk at 6 AM every morning before I went to work at Santa Ana College.

One morning, as the dogs and I were finishing our walk, a man came out of his house and picked up his newspaper from the lawn. He was in a bathrobe and slippers. I knew who he was, and I knew that he lived there – everyone knew he lived there.

He was only 15 feet from me, so I said, “Good morning, John.” He looked up at me and I could tell he was trying to figure out who I was, so I continued the conversation with, “I thought about saying good morning Duke, but I don’t know you well enough to do that. I also considered good morning Mr. Wayne, but I’ve seen all of your movies, and that seemed too formal. The only thing left was John.”

He broke into a real belly laugh at that and said, “Come on in and have a cup of coffee.” Then I made the only big mistake I ever made in my whole life.

I said, “Thank you, but I have a class waiting for me at the college. I have to be there by 8 o’clock.” We said a few more words back and forth and laughed a little bit and then I took the dogs and we went back to the boat, and I went to work.

 My mistake was entirely my father’s fault, he’s the one that taught me my work ethic.

This isn’t Dave, but it’s a good picture.

This isn’t Dave, but it looks a lot like him.

I have made many good friends in the diving world, one of them is Dave McLaren. I met Dave at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. When I was the course director of a diving instructors program. He was on my staff. Dave now lives in Texas. He has been reading my blog and contacted me about an article he wrote for a magazine in British Columbia in 1991. He thought my blog readers would enjoy reading it. He sent it to me, and I agreed, so I retyped it. If there are any errors in it, it’s my typing, not his, and I left some out to shorten it for the blog.
“The waters off Canada’s West Coast team with life………….. One of these creatures, the octopus, is startling divers and scientists by displaying large amounts of an unsuspected quality: intelligence. Long believed to be the evil devilfish, lying in wait to reach out and drag unwary fisherman screaming to their dooms, the octopus is, in truth, a shy, timid creature who wants above all to be left alone……….. Cousteau after studying the octopus, called it the “soft intelligence.”
Some years ago, I had occasion to meet an octopus informally. Intimately.
We were returning from an enjoyable but uneventful dive off of Whytecliffe Park in West Vancouver, and were making our way slowly upward along a fissure in the rock face. An octopus was gliding on his tentacles down the same fissure, when we met at a depth of 30 feet.

We estimated him to be 12 feet across as he backed slowly and wearily into a recess. He curled his eight tentacles beneath himself and sat watching us. I reached out with one finger on my gloved left hand, and stroked him gently between the eyes, which diver lore said would pacify him. He backed up a little more, staring impassively at me with his unwinking, golden eyes. I stroked him again, and he stopped backing away, so my companion and I vented (the air out of) our suits and settled on the bottom to enjoy his nearness. For several minutes divers and octopus watched one another’s movements.
I looked over at Ann Williams, my diving buddy. She was grinning with delight, her shoulders hunched in a characteristic gesture of hers that says, “Wow!”
One tentacle moved from beneath the octopus’s body, slowly uncoiling toward me, until the delicate tip touched my left mitt. It was as if we could hear him thinking, “Hmm… normal temperature; soft; no mucus membrane.”
The tentacle moved up the arm of my nylon suit. “Different texture.”
The tip touched the face of the gauge on my arm. “Different texture again! What are these creatures made of?”
The tentacle moved smoothly, walking on sucker disks until it lay up my arm, from my fingertips to my shoulder. A second tentacle uncoiled then as the octopus, his curiosity fully around, continued his investigation of the two strange beings who had entered his domain. It touched the Mitt on my right hand, and worked its way up past my elbow to my shoulder, giving tentative tugs along both arms as if to assess mass and holding power.
“So far, so good,” he seemed to conclude. “The creatures seem passive and friendly. Perhaps touching between the eyes is a gesture of friendship in their home area. I’ll try it.”
A third tentacle uncoiled, whip-like, through the water, faster this time, more confident. It’s touched my forehead above my mask, and began exploring. It moved over and around my hood, onto my mask faceplate, down on to my regulator mouthpiece. The octopus’s thoughts were clear: “This part is moving.”
He gave light tugs on the regulator second stage. The sensitive tentacle tip moved over my rubber mouthpiece and touched my beard. There was a momentary hesitation, a drawing back, then it touched my beard again. “Parasitic growth?”
The probing continued, touching my lip. I felt the tentacle tip probe between my lips and touch my teeth on the right side of my mouth. It moved slowly into my mouth along my teeth, all the way back to my molars. I thought about the movie Alien.
At this point, I felt the exploration had progressed far enough, and gently shook my upper body, head, and arms.

The octopus immediately let go with all three tentacles. He did not withdraw them, though, and after a few seconds, he gently put them back on me. Again I gave a slight shrug, and again the octopus let go. This time, he retracted his tentacles to their original position beneath his body.  His thoughts reached us through the water. “I must have frightened them. Sorry about that!”
We regarded one another quietly for another few moments, then the octopus moved away from the wall, toward Ann and me. Unhurried and unworried, he passed between us, moving down the seabed to deeper water. We watched him amble off, remaining stock–still ourselves. He neither stopped nor look back.
Ann finally nudged me on the shoulder, indicating that we should resume our ascent. Reluctantly, we did.
Back on shore. We must have looked like a pair of fools. We couldn’t stop grinning all day.”

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. Thank you Dave McLaren.