Unusual encounter

[parabolic]

During a dive in Morro Bay last week I came across this little octopus peeking out at me from a broken horseneck clam shell:

After awhile he came out and jetted a few feet away, stopped, and started changing colors and shapes to confuse me. I was not deterred, however, and fired off a few frames:

Every few minutes he would jet to another spot a short distance away. This time he landed right in front of a large one-spot fringehead blenny. The octupus is in the lower right part of the frame, the blenny directly above, substantially out of his lair with the dorsal spot clearly visible:

I carefully maneuvered around to the front of the unlikely pair and fired off a few frontal shots:

And one last right profile before the octopus tired of all this and jetted away for the last time:

All this was witnessed by a smiling crab with a moustache and a mohawk:

 

[Larry C]

Cool shots, Ken! I think the crab is smiling because the Octopus was paying more attention to you than to him.

 

[firstdive2005]

Nice. That's so much fun chasing little guys around and letting them pose. Last year I was following an Octopus on a Coz reef and ran into two blennys in a little open area. One was carrying eggs in it's mouth and stayed pretty much hovering over it's den. The male was about two feet away in another den protecting it. I stayed very still videoing them and shooting stills. After a while they did some really cool things. I must have spent twenty minutes with them. A great time. Your patience is obvious.

 

[TheWetRookie]

Cool catch