My Octopus Teacher Edit

A big shark came...

A big shoal of dream fish.

A few months later, after she'd died,

A gentleness.

A huge part of her body is actually given to those eggs.

A human friend, like, waving and saying, "Hi, I'm excited to see you."

A lot of her intelligence is built

A lot of the scavengers coming to feed on her.

A mollusk shouldn't be this intelligent.

A part of me just wanted to hold her and chase them away.

A scary feeling, going into the water early the next day.

A strong sense of himself...

A very fragile, liquid, soft animal

According to the literature, octopus are supposed to be a nocturnal species.

After a while, she was just carrying on with her normal activities,

After about a year...

After visiting her more and more and more,

All I could do at the time was just think of her.

All sorts of animals.

All the mollusks she is capturing, they're quite easy to catch,

All the smell's on the kelp,

All these stories are just being thrown up.

All those eggs hatched.

All your...

An amazing feeling to think that this animal is capable of that

An environment like this,

An incredible confidence,

An octopus is essentially a snail that's lost its shell in evolution.

And actually, then how vulnerable all our lives on this planet are.

And as he gets older, he seems to want to do it more and more.

And as I draw all these lines,

And can withstand such an attack and fully recover.

And didn't come back to that den.

And eventually...

And every day, I'd tell him the stories.

And find hidden animals in the landscape

And fish tracks...

And gently just throwing them out the den.

And goes and hides underneath a big, poisonous anemone.

And has this amazing method of just picking them up with her suckers

And have those experiences, it's absolutely mind blowing.

And heart urchin tracks

And how the octopus is connected to the helmet shell.

And I can clearly see...

And I could feel I was outside.

And I could feel it, like from one minute to the next,

And I could see it had sort of healed over pretty fast.

And I couldn't help feeling...

And I didn't wanna see a camera or an edit suite ever again.

And I felt, in my life, I was getting past the difficulties I had.

And I had this deep longing to be inside that world.

And I just float above it and feel her there.

And I remember it was a very rough day, very turbulent.

And I remember there was this strange shape to my left

And I saw her catch three fish like this.

And I suddenly realized I've got energy to take images and film again...

And I think she was a little bit afraid of me,

And I think that's the thing

And I thought this was over.

And I thought, "Oh, no, this is this whole...

And I took inspiration from my childhood,

And I took inspiration from these master trackers

And I was getting sick from all the pressure.

And I was thinking, "Well, how long before something happens with these animals?"

And I'm coming out of the den,

And I'm gonna go about my business."

And I've gotta be prepared for all eventualities.

And in that moment,

And in this little 200 meter patch, you can dive

And instead of that messy lunge...

And it gave me a strange sort of confidence

And it hit me how she was teaching me so much.

And it just keeps everything in balance.

And it leaves.

And it was joyous. It was like, "Well, there she is."

And it's an incredible place.

And it's extremely liberating.

And it's like this fantastic feeling.

And it's like, "Okay, now, this is too crazy."

And jets away.

And just going down...

And just showing him the... the wonders of nature

And just took her away, you know, into the misty forest.

And just wrapped it in this extraordinary cloak around her

And makes the mistake of leaving that anemone.

And my natural instinct is...

And now I know how the helmet shell is connected to the urchin

And now I'm worried, "How is she getting food?"

And now you can come into my octopus world."

And observe.

And off she goes, striding away,

And perhaps it does give you some strange octopus level of joy.

And realizing, "Okay, and then the mating is beginning."

And see how that mollusk reacts.

And seeing this really strange thing.

And she doesn't seem sure of what to do or how to deal with them.

And she'd be slightly afraid and then look, "Oh, it's him."

And she'd come out and be very curious.

And she's got to learn fast because

And she's just dull and white.

And she's moving towards me.

And she's right at the back of the den, you know, just not moving much.

And she's wrapping many leaves of kelp tightly around her body

And started doing the thing I love and what I know.

And takes advantage of all the wonderful food available there.

And thank God she managed to get really deep in that crack.

And that thing falling quickly just startles that animal.

And that was fine at first.

And that was the last time we had physical contact.

And that was very frustrating at first, so difficult to discern.

And that's on the shark's back.

And that's the most incredible thing, is to be followed by an octopus.

And that's when she left the den and got a real fright...

And that's when you get to know the wild.

And the crab seems to sense her

And the details

And the fish, you know, feeding on her.

And the intricacies.

And the next minute, the shark is actually clamped down on one of her arms,

And the next thing I saw, she's washed out the den, barely alive.

And the only way I knew how to do it was to...

And the predation marks.

And the shark, it's just been completely outwitted.

And the suckers in place.

And the whole forest around there

And then covered my whole hand.

And then drop venom in there, like a snake,

And then focusing on that small space.

And then folding her arms

And then follow them, sometimes for hours,

And then I approached her too fast.

And then I had this crazy idea.

And then I just wanted to keep still, so I held onto a rock.

And then I met these men

And then I started to...

And then it just happens.

And then it turns and rushes, and it's got a huge fright.

And then just peering out.

And then knowing, "Okay, this animal is very close now.

And then picked up my camera again

And then seeing that both animals are pretty relaxed

And then she changes

And then she waits and hides.

And then stared at me out of the little gap.

And then that will record her going about her business."

And then the crab thinks, "Okay, everything's all right,"

And then the most amazing thing, to see this...

And then there's nowhere for it to go.

And then this almost felt, psychologically, like I was...

And then this incredible forest,

And then two of those arms underneath slowly moving,

And then you have to start thinking...

And then you just look around, and you see these brittle stars,

And then you'd just come up absolutely blank. There's nothing.

And then you'll get this beautiful window of time

And then, a couple of weeks later,

And then, as your body adapts, it just becomes easier and easier.

And then, bam!

And then, bang!

And then, boom, you know, she was gone.

And then, I see her,

And then, slowly, as the arm grew, she grew her confidence back.

And then, suddenly...

And there she is...

And there's not a lot of fear in it at all.

And they are particularly aggressive.

And they really are her most serious predator.

And they'd finish her off that night.

And this crazy chase is on.

And this incredible animal is coming towards you.

And this is how she works.

And this is where it gets interesting.

And timing her death exactly for the hatching of those eggs.

And try and read as many scientific papers as possible.

And trying to capture, it was...

And very powerful swimmer.

And working out very quickly how best to hunt a very tricky prey.

And worm tracks?

And you can jump off the top and go wherever you want.

And you feel you're on the brink of something extraordinary.

And you just have to relax.

And you just slowly get all your clues together.

And you just... you wanna kick yourself, because it's, you know...

And you know

And you've got this young child that's growing up.

And you've ruined it.

And, almost on a weekly basis, you can find out something new to science.

And, at the same time, is slowly moving away.

And, initially, she was clearly being affected by my presence,

And, of course, you know...

And... and how that changed me.

And... and it was all so taxing, in a way.

Are these sharks gonna pitch up again?

As an adult, I'd been separated from that.

As I started to map the environment around her den,

As if somehow what happened to her had happened to me in some strange way.

As the shark goes near some of the thick kelp...

At the base of all those arms,

At the time, I didn't know

Be in this ocean.

Because that's when you know there's full trust.

Bits going everywhere. The smell's going out.

Body was slightly hunched forward and was following the scent trail.

Burnt in my memory, this, like, huge shark just suddenly approaching her.

But also with that amazing wildness that she represented

But I couldn't help thinking,

But I didn't do that.

But I had to breathe.

But I was just too overcome

But occasionally,

But she didn't. She just rode on my hand right to the surface.

But she's completely safe. There's nothing it can do.

But some of these mollusks will only relax

But sometimes you just get a feeling,

But that's their strategy, live fast and die young.

But that's when you see the subtle differences.

But the most important thing,

But the problem is, of course, she's gotta come back.

But the strange thing is, as you get closer to them,

But then you realize

But then, after a while, you see all the different types of the forest.

But they have an incredible sense of smell.

But they've got these incredibly hard shells.

But underneath that,

But you can immediately tell

But you realize that there's a line that can't be crossed.

But, at some point, you're gonna have to breathe.

But, at that point, I was making a lot of mistakes.

But, luckily, I didn't need to.

But, um...

By far the most powerful

By the rocky shore, the intertidal and the kelp forest.

By this stage, I knew quite well the stages of an octopus's life.

Can't see what she's doing.

Come up with the most incredible methods to deceive them.

Coming at it with a shield,

Coming through the water.

Corralling me so that

Diving in the shallow kelp forest.

Does she dream? If she dreams, what does she dream about?

Doing this terrifying death roll.

Drops the remaining shells

Each moment is so precious because it's so short.

Especially wild creatures.

Even when it's half grown.

Eventually, about 100 days later, that arm had fully regrown.

Every little behavior,

Every species and what they're doing, how they're interacting.

Every time you immerse in that cold water.

Everything feels okay.

Everything seemed, at this point...

Fairly shallow water.

Finally, after looking for her for a week, day after day,

Focused.

For 10, 15 minutes.

For her young.

From the sheer number of prey that she has to catch.

Get anything out of this

Go down and whoa,

Go into the incredible, subtle signs in nature,

Going through a type of dismembering.

Grabbed hold of me.

Grow horns on their heads.

Had I been responsible for this?

Has that... has that experience freaked it out too much?

Having a scuba tank in a thick kelp forest

He actually found this tiny little octopus.

He'd seen her. He'd met her.

He's like a little marine biologist now. He knows so much.

Her ability to learn and remember details.

Her entire being is thinking, feeling, exploring.

Her severed arm in its mouth.

Here's a highly antisocial animal playing with fish.

Here's an invertebrate, essentially a mollusk,

How do you do that?

How she can think that quickly and make those life and death decisions,

Hundreds of thousands of them.

I can't be fiddling around. It's gotta be instinctive.

I couldn't even face that.

I couldn't find her. She wasn't in her den.

I didn't know...

I don't think it really helped.

I dropped one of my lenses,

I fell in love with her

I felt very vulnerable.

I found this very, very special area

I had been working hard for a long time,

I had so much energy to give back.

I had to have a radical change.

I had to learn what octopus tracks looked like.

I hadn't been a person that was overly sentimental towards animals before.

I hadn't slept properly for months.

I just couldn't, in that state, be a good father to my son.

I just keep going every day and just check.

I just thought, "I wonder if anybody could ever track anything underwater?"

I just, you know... almost can't believe my eyes.

I mean, an unimaginable life.

I mean, I sort of slept, dreamt...

I mean, in some crazy way, it was a relief.

I mean, it just became a bit of an obsession.

I mean, it struck home so hard for me.

I mean, they just were inside of the natural world.

I needed to learn everything.

I noticed...

I put my hand out a tiny bit.

I realized I was changing.

I realized, "This is this crazy thing I saw...

I really could feel it. That big creature.

I remember that day when it all started.

I started to see pretty extraordinary things.

I think quite stimulating for that huge intelligence.

I think, "Thank God she's safe. She's right under the rock."

I thought about helping her back physically to the den.

I want to be more like an amphibious animal.

I was around for a good 80 percent of her life.

I was getting so much from the wild, and I could actually now give.

I was just checking every day to see if she was okay,

I was making a film called The Great Dance with my brother.

I was very relieved that she was alive, breathing.

I was... You know, I was...

I went through two years of absolute hell.

I worked with in the Kalahari.

I'd been underwater for quite a long time,

I'd come in at the end of a whole drama.

I'd had this experience with these incredible San master trackers.

I'd just worn myself out.

I'd kind of given up and was going back to the shore.

I'd never seen her catching a fish during the day.

I'd taken him so many times.

I'd witnessed something extraordinary.

I'm thinking now, "She's definitely gonna catch this one."

If I think back,

If she was in a playful mood, you couldn't leave it there for too long.

If that drill is precisely in the apex of the shell,

Imagine having 2,000 fingers.

In a very quick movement,

In my mind, thinking like an octopus.

In order to get her food.

In the beginning, it's a hard thing to get in the water.

In the water and on land.

In this strange way, our lives were mirroring each other.

Initially, I thought...

Initially, it all just seems like much of the same thing.

Instinctively, I knew not to wear a wet suit.

Into this extraordinary, wobbly, flowy old lady in a dress.

Is absolutely murky, and you can't see a thing.

Is actually outside of her brain, in her arms.

Is not optimal for me.

Is when it comes out the den

Is you're in a three dimensional forest,

It helps tremendously to have no barrier to that environment.

It takes that animal to a different level.

It took a long time to actually, like, process it.

It took going in every day to really get to know her environment better.

It was a little bit scary in the dark.

It was a nice, calm, clear day.

It was a relief, because the intensity of going every day and tracking her, um...

It was difficult to imagine at first

It was just heartbreaking.

It was kind of the right size, the right time.

It was shocking to see small caves really close to her,

It was thousands of times more awake and intelligent than I am.

It was tough in a way.

It's a hard thing to explain,

It's almost like the forest mind.

It's beautiful.

It's close. It's within one or two meters."

It's curious, and there's trust,

It's impossible to see them.

It's like a...

It's like being a detective.

It's like, "I totally trust this human,

It's one of the wildest, most scary places to swim on the planet.

It's quite a long time ago now, that day when it all started.

It's very rare to see an animal that small.

It's very useful to come back home

It's very, very rare to see two octopus close together.

It's, like, much more extreme than our maddest science fiction.

Its language is visible.

Just a mass of them sort of overwhelm her,

Just have this...

Just how precious wild places are.

Just in case it attacked, and put up the shield.

Just in pieces.

Just rolling it up in this fraction of a second.

Just the pure magnificence of her.

Keeping all the other arms attached to the den

Kelp or algae moving in the swell...

Like an octopus.

Literally below the high water mark.

Little changes in the algal patterns where she's been moving.

Lobsters just shooting out of the reef.

Looking for the strange thing I'd seen.

Make breakthroughs.

Most of my childhood was spent in the rock pools,

Most of the time, she's jetting or crawling or swimming.

My childhood memories are completely dominated

My family was suffering.

My mind couldn't deal with all that stuff.

My relationship with people, with humans was changing.

My relationship with the sea forest and its creatures deepens...

My son, at this stage, was very interested in everything underwater.

Next minute, the shark grabs her.

Nightmare happening again."

Not that long in the future,

Now she's completely the boss.

Now, how the hell does she kill and eat them?

Now, was she more active at night?

Now, you know, have you ruined it forever?

Octopus vulgaris is the scientific name.

Of seeing even deeper into her world.

Often, I go to the place of her main den.

Oh, then she completely lost interest in the fish,

On the abductor muscle.

On the other side, the shark picks up her scent again.

One day, she was following me.

One of the most exciting things ever in my life, taking my son,

Or even to one of the lower primates.

Over her vulnerable head.

Packed with pyjama sharks.

People ask, "Why are you going to the same place every day?"

Perhaps she's trying to mimic

Picking up maybe close to 100 shells and stones...

Piece of algae that you can hardly hold with your hands

Prize off those suckers

Reaching up for the surface like that.

Right in extremely shallow water.

Rush to the surface as fast as you can.

Rushed over...

Sacrificing her own life

Sediment everywhere.

She basically has to do geometry

She can pour herself through a tiny little crack.

She can then get between the lobster and myself.

She comes around a corner and spots a crab.

She initially adopted the same method to crab hunting with lobster.

She jets up in the canopy,

She just climbs out over a rock, leaves the water, and I was like...

She just ignited my curiosity in a way that I had not experienced before.

She just kept coming...

She just pushes off the back...

She kept still and tried to hide.

She puts her body into this strange posture that kind of looks like a rock.

She sees this shiny new thing in the forest.

She walks.

She was gone.

She was moving very badly, slowly, very weak.

She was out of the den, moving around near the edge of the forest.

She was teaching me to become sensitized to the other.

She wasn't coming out of that den.

She'd just pull the thing over.

She'd made me realize

She'd see big movement,

She's a common octopus.

She's always gonna have this problem of brittle stars taking all her food."

She's bleeding. That smell's in the water.

She's got 2,000 suckers, and she's using all of them independently.

She's got no mother or father to teach her anything. She's alone.

She's just slowly dying

She's now got the upper hand.

She's only got just over a year to live.

She's oxygenating the eggs with her siphon, looking after them.

She's quite a messy eater.

She's shot out the back.

She's so weak that she can't make those vibrant colors of a healthy octopus,

She's there.

She's thought, "Okay, brittle stars are stealing my food,"

So I just gently pushed for the surface, thinking she would move off my hand.

So I then started a whole new development

So I thought, "I'll leave the camera there,

So I thought, "Yeah, this is like a real problem now.

So I'm looking at kills. I'm looking at little marks, diggings in the sand,

So it was incredibly exciting as a child

So it's a pretty tough road they have to walk.

So long ago."

So many times I'd go and search through the scientific papers,

So she drops in weight, and she loses an enormous amount of strength.

So she lifted this incredibly slippery...

So that you can actually go up and take a breath.

So the rock is just slowly moving away.

So the shark's now biting and snapping at the kelp.

So they are deadly little octopus predators.

So this incredibly clever animal retreats to the shallows,

So when these thousands of threads going off from the octopus

So when those huge storms used to come in,

So while I was very excited that this mating was beginning,

So you go and you interact with this human.

So you've got to very gently

So, over millions of years, she's had to...

Somehow she's managed to maneuver herself into the least dangerous place,

Somehow, she realizes this thing is not dangerous,

Something happens when that animal makes contact.

Something just made me veer slightly to the left.

Sort of perfect in the forest.

Starting to grow back.

Straight back down again.

Strange human creature visiting?

Such an incredible feeling.

Suddenly, she's...

Suddenly...

Super dangerous out in the deeper forest at night,

Surprisingly fast, just being drawn to her.

Takes a few seconds to figure out,

That could have ended in the most incredible interaction and deep trust,

That fear had subsided tremendously.

That is protected with a big piece of kelp forest,

That relies on tremendous intelligence.

That she can get past this incredible difficulty.

That she was getting anything out of the relationship.

That thousands of hours in nature can teach a child.

That you'd be interfering with the whole process of the forest.

That you're part of this place, not a visitor.

That's a huge difference.

That's been through impossible odds to get to this place.

That's what I most loved to do.

The animals are extremely exotic and strange.

The arm becomes pretty functional,

The big relief came a week or so later,

The boundaries between her and I seemed to dissolve.

The cold takes your breath away.

The cold upgrades the brain because you're getting this flood of chemicals

The egg casings.

The eggs are laid right in the back, in the dark.

The first instinct is to try and scare the sharks away.

The fish even seemed to be confused.

The next day...

The ocean used to smash the doors down and fill up the bottom of the house.

The problem when you're a crab,

The shark comes, does one pass,

The shark tries to shake her off and is swimming away.

The shark.

The water drops to as low as eight, nine degrees Celsius.

Their skin is striped. That's why they're called a pyjama shark.

Then I was like, "Hold on.

Then you just saw the shark swimming on the periphery, picking up her scent.

There I was, just staring into the eyes of this incredible creature.

There she was.

There was a definite moment where...

There was a sort of...

There was no more feeding, no more hunting.

There was this one incredible day.

There's there's something to this creature that's very unusual.

There's a drill that can drill through hard shell

There's another big octopus right next to her.

There's no greater feeling on earth.

There's no holding the arms back just in case I have to pull back.

There's quite a distance to the den.

There's something special about her.

There's something to learn here.

These incredible sounds of the humpback whales

These lightning fast strikes.

These things are coming right into that crack.

They can look spiky. They can look smooth.

They can match color, texture, pattern, skin.

They can shove their noses into a small crack.

They have up to half a million young. A handful survive.

They're not visual predators.

They're tiny, and they go into the water column.

Things that my eye couldn't even see,

This animal has spent millions of years learning to be impossible to find.

This animal.

This behavior doesn't feel predatory to me."

This dread in the bottom of my stomach.

This incredible creativity to deceive.

This incredible pride for this animal

This is an animal that is strategizing

This is high level invertebrate intelligence.

This is like a giant underwater brain operating over millions of years.

This is not good.

This is something different. This is interesting.

This place on the tip of Africa is known as the Cape of Storms.

Those predators are ever present.

Throwing her web over the top.

Time and time again, they just evade her.

Tiny little miniature, perfect miniature arm...

To all the other animals, predator and prey,

To gently back away.

To literally live in the force of that giant Atlantic Ocean.

To see that develop,

To sense how vulnerable these wild animals' lives are,

To understand every little tiny mark,

To watch these men...

To work out exactly the precise spot where she needs to drill that shell

Tom.

Touching it, feeling it, tasting it.

Two legs come out.

Two thirds of her cognition

Uh, is that animal ever gonna trust you?

Uh, it's just, yeah, pretty, pretty incredible.

Um, just nurturing all of this.

Um...

Um...

Until I went to the central Kalahari about 20 years ago.

Using her arm like this strange weapon.

Using me as part of her hunting strategy.

Very interested, very curious, but not taking stupid chances.

Walking along the shore

Walking bipedally.

Was just extraordinary to witness.

Was she out because I was there?

Watching her coming round the side,

We had this little wooden bungalow,

We kind of imagined that it might be one of her young.

Week after month after year after year.

What goes through her mind? What's she thinking?

What happens if I just went every day?

What happens if I... I never missed a day?

What she taught me was to feel...

What was gonna happen to her or if this would make her weak and vulnerable,

What's so amazing about this environment

What's the difference between octopus tracks

When she hunts, she's strategic, and she's like...

When you have that connection with an animal

When you interfere in the lives of animals.

When you're diving alone, everything about my kit has to be perfect.

Where it's difficult for these sharks to get to,

Who were probably some of the best trackers in the world.

Why would a wild animal, doing its thing,

With my feelings for her.

Without disturbing her,

Wondering, "Is this the last day? Am I not gonna see her?"

Worried about your family, your child.

Worries and problems and life drama just dissolve.

You are crossing a line

You can compare her intelligence to a cat or a dog

You can't wait to get back in the water.

You get the forest with a lot of different algae growing in the bottom.

You get the misty forest.

You get the old growth forest.

You get to be able to hold your breath for longer.

You go into that water...

You had that terrible feeling in your stomach.

You just can't wait to get up in the morning, 'cause there's so much to do

You just suddenly see...

You just want to visit her every day and see what's going on.

You know, you're just backing away, moving backwards,

You might as well be on another planet.

You naturally just get more relaxed in the water.

You realize that every one is very important.

You realize that we're very similar in a lot of ways.

You see play often in social animals.

You slowly start to care about all the animals,

You start thinking about your own death and your own vulnerability,

You start to crave the cold.

You think, "What on earth is this animal doing?"

You're being now hunted by a liquid animal.

You're flying, basically.

You're going into a place that's under studied,

You're in touch with this wild place, and it's speaking to you.

You're on hyperalert.

You're stepping into this completely different world.

Your great purpose in life is now...

Your whole body comes alive.

'cause the forest itself actually dampens the swell.

'Cause you've got all these different types of predators, all hunting her.

"Oh, my God, what's going on?"

"Okay, I trust you. I trust you, human.

"Okay, those are the animals she's killing."

"She's hunting the fish."

"She's playing with the fish."

"What the hell's going on here?"

[breathes deeply]

[choking up] Of course I miss her.

[chuckling] ...you've forgotten...

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[gasps, sighs]

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[heavy breathing]

[indistinct chattering]

[man] A lot of people say that an octopus is like an alien.

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[sighs]

[sighs]

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[tense orchestral music plays]

[tense, propulsive music plays]

[thunder rumbling]

[thunder rumbling]

[upbeat orchestral music playing]

[waves crashing]

[whales hooting]

[whales moaning]