The Iron Ring

Having returned from vacation to a pile of sciency things including something extremely important and thesis-related (think nice thoughts for me between Feb 15 and March 15 I’m not telling the real date to anyone) I don’t so much feel like talking science in my off-time today. Instead I am going to relate my very favorite story from vacation, and what was quite likely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

We were on Frigate bay in St Kitts (fyi- the beach was not so nice, sort of like fancy dirt) and the water was beautiful. So we’re wading in up to our waists or so and enjoying the sun- and I feel something on my leg. Now, I may not live near an ocean or anything but I do consider myself a beach veteran so a brush against my leg does not usually cause me to flinch, but this was not a brush. This was something of serious weight on my right leg. I turned. And as I’m sure you can guess by the pictures posted here, I found an octopus attached to me. He was sort of dark, and his octopus arms (legs? tentacles?) were wrapped around my right thigh. I shrieked. I shook my leg and he didn’t budge- I had to physically remove him from my leg. At this point, the octopus, scared to his little octpus-wits I am sure, squirted his black ink in an attempt to frighten me. I’m sure if I was a fish I would have been rightfully disoriented. The whole incident could not have lasted more than 15-20 seconds. So I have no picture of my new Caribbean friend.

To answer your questions;

1) he did not ‘bite’ me

2) yes, they can bite, they have hard little beak-like mouths to break open shellfish

3) no, it is not a normal incident in st kitts, it is extremely rare to see them in shallow water- lots of divers never see them

4) this picture is as close as I can find on googleimage- but I hear octopi can change colors so there is no way to know what kind of octopus mine was

I would include a beach shot of me and my travel companion after the attack but my companion was sans shirt and as I hear his co-workers are among my readers, I will respectfully omit the picture.