My Octopus Teacher

250 00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:44,960 I just thought, "I wonder if anybody could ever track anything underwater?" 251 00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:56,640 This animal has spent millions of years learning to be impossible to find. 252 00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:08,840 I had to learn what octopus tracks looked like. 253 00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:15,400 And that was very frustrating at first, so difficult to discern. 254 00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:17,800 What's the difference between octopus tracks 255 00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:19,440 and heart urchin tracks 256 00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:21,200 and fish tracks... 257 00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:24,200 and worm tracks? 258 00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:27,720 And the predation marks. 259 00:26:30,120 --> 00:26:31,800 The egg casings. 260 00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:36,080 I needed to learn everything. 261 00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:51,200 And then you have to start thinking... 262 00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:52,880 like an octopus. 263 00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:01,720 <i>It's like being a detective.</i> 264 00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:05,200 <i>And you just slowly</i> <i>get all your clues together.</i> 265 00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:37,920 <i>And then I started to...</i> 266 00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:40,120 <i>make breakthroughs.</i> 267 00:27:46,120 --> 00:27:48,280 <i>"Okay, those are the animals</i> <i>she's killing."</i> 268 00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:01,120 <i>So I'm looking at kills. I'm looking</i> <i>at little marks, diggings in the sand,</i> 269 00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:04,520 <i>little changes in the algal patterns</i> <i>where she's been moving.</i> 270 00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:08,920 <i>And then knowing,</i> <i>"Okay, this animal is very close now.</i> 271 00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:11,800 <i>It's close.</i> <i>It's within one or two meters."</i> 272 00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:14,760 <i>And then focusing on that small space.</i> 273 00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:21,800 And then, bang! 274 00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:23,960 She's there. 275 00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:34,880 Finally, after looking for her for a week, day after day, 276 00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:36,960 there she was. 277 00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:43,720 It's like a... 278 00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:48,600 a human friend, like, waving and saying, "Hi, I'm excited to see you." 279 00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:57,160 And I could feel it, like from one minute to the next, 280 00:28:57,240 --> 00:29:00,440 "Okay, I trust you. I trust you, human. 281 00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:04,040 And now you can come into my octopus world." 282 00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:15,480 And she's moving towards me. 283 00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:18,280 And my natural instinct is... 284 00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:21,120 to gently back away. 285 00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:28,720 And then I just wanted to keep still, so I held onto a rock. 286 00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:35,680 She just kept coming... 287 00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:38,800 and then covered my whole hand. 288 00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:41,760 I'd been underwater for quite a long time, 289 00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:46,960 so I just gently pushed for the surface, thinking she would move off my hand. 290 00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:53,320 But she didn't. She just rode on my hand right to the surface. 291 00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:57,080 [gentle orchestral music playing] 292 00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:14,960 There I was, just staring into the eyes of this incredible creature. 293 00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:42,720 It was difficult to imagine at first 294 00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:45,680 that she was getting anything out of the relationship. 295 00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:48,080 Why would a wild animal, doing its thing, 296 00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:50,400 get anything out of this 297 00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:52,480 strange human creature visiting? 298 00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:58,960 <i>And this is where it gets interesting.</i> 299 00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:08,160 <i>I think quite stimulating</i> <i>for that huge intelligence.</i> 300 00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:19,000 <i>Somehow, she realizes</i> <i>this thing is not dangerous,</i> 301 00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:22,680 <i>so you go</i> <i>and you interact with this human.</i> 302 00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:30,200 <i>And perhaps it does give you</i> <i>some strange octopus level of joy.</i> 303 00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,080 [delicate piano music playing] 304 00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:03,720 <i>When you have that connection</i> <i>with an animal</i> 305 00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:08,120 <i>and have those experiences,</i> <i>it's absolutely mind-blowing.</i> 306 00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,240 <i>There's no greater feeling on earth.</i> 307 00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:28,400 <i>The boundaries between her and I</i> <i>seemed to dissolve.</i> 308 00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:33,040 <i>Just the pure magnificence of her.</i> 309 00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:08,120 <i>All I could do at the time</i> <i>was just think of her.</i> 310 00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:11,320 <i>In the water and on land.</i> 311 00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:17,640 <i>I mean,</i> <i>it just became a bit of an obsession.</i> 312 00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:20,800 <i>You just w