I don't know much about octos, but another idea would be a deeper-water octopus that got a little closer to shore than usual. For example, this species is found around here if you get below 200m:
Bathypolypus arcticus, deep sea octopus - The Cephalopod Page
Cool! Thanks for the link. It would be very interesting to bring a slurp gun out there and collect a specimen to key (non-invasively). What's interesting about the octo. photos is the papillae on the eye stalks. However, since these guys can assume any shape...
I used to have several octopods for behavioral research and just love the way they think and react. It's just too bad that nature doesn't let these guys live longer than a few years because they'd probably have cities underwater by now if they lived a few decades. They're pretty nice as pets too.
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