WEBVTT
00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:09.000
[waves crashing]
00:00:14.280 --> 00:00:16.079
[seagull squawking]
00:00:16.103 --> 00:00:24.103
..:: Presented By ZarFilm Website ::..
.:: www.bolboljan.net ::.
00:00:25.960 --> 00:00:29.040
[female chanting playing]
00:00:36.040 --> 00:00:39.080
[man] A lot of people say
that an octopus is like an alien.
00:00:41.760 --> 00:00:45.560
But the strange thing is,
as you get closer to them,
00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:49.760
you realize that we're very similar
in a lot of ways.
00:00:54.160 --> 00:00:58.200
You're stepping
into this completely different world.
00:01:06.160 --> 00:01:08.560
Such an incredible feeling.
00:01:10.360 --> 00:01:13.680
And you feel you're on the brink
of something extraordinary.
00:01:15.760 --> 00:01:19.080
[upbeat orchestral music playing]
00:01:21.920 --> 00:01:24.800
But you realize
that there's a line that can't be crossed.
00:01:25.440 --> 00:01:27.440
[tense music playing]
00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:50.720
It's quite a long time ago now,
that day when it all started.
00:02:05.280 --> 00:02:06.480
[thunder rumbling]
00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:12.080
[seagulls squawking]
00:02:25.040 --> 00:02:29.360
This place on the tip of Africa
is known as the Cape of Storms.
00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:38.080
My childhood memories
are completely dominated
00:02:38.160 --> 00:02:41.240
by the rocky shore, the intertidal
and the kelp forest.
00:02:47.240 --> 00:02:49.240
We had this little wooden bungalow,
00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:52.000
literally below the high-water mark.
00:02:52.560 --> 00:02:54.960
So when those huge storms
used to come in,
00:02:55.560 --> 00:02:59.600
the ocean used to smash the doors down
and fill up the bottom of the house.
00:03:05.200 --> 00:03:07.200
So it was incredibly exciting as a child
00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:11.400
to literally live
in the force of that giant Atlantic Ocean.
00:03:20.200 --> 00:03:23.520
Most of my childhood
was spent in the rock pools,
00:03:23.600 --> 00:03:25.480
diving in the shallow kelp forest.
00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:32.360
That's what I most loved to do.
00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:37.960
As an adult, I'd been separated from that.
00:03:40.680 --> 00:03:42.720
And that was fine at first.
00:03:44.640 --> 00:03:48.880
Until I went to the central Kalahari
about 20 years ago.
00:03:59.880 --> 00:04:03.240
I was making a film
called The Great Dance with my brother.
00:04:04.600 --> 00:04:05.960
And then I met these men
00:04:06.040 --> 00:04:09.400
who were probably
some of the best trackers in the world.
00:04:12.920 --> 00:04:14.520
To watch these men...
00:04:16.040 --> 00:04:19.959
go into the incredible,
subtle signs in nature,
00:04:20.040 --> 00:04:22.560
things that my eye couldn't even see,
00:04:22.640 --> 00:04:25.520
and then follow them, sometimes for hours,
00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:27.960
and find hidden animals in the landscape
00:04:28.040 --> 00:04:30.400
was just extraordinary to witness.
00:04:33.240 --> 00:04:36.880
I mean, they just were
inside of the natural world.
00:04:39.920 --> 00:04:41.680
And I could feel I was outside.
00:04:45.160 --> 00:04:48.400
And I had this deep longing
to be inside that world.
00:04:58.920 --> 00:05:01.720
I went through two years of absolute hell.
00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:04.760
[indistinct chattering]
00:05:05.760 --> 00:05:08.520
I had been working hard for a long time,
00:05:09.440 --> 00:05:10.720
I'd just worn myself out.
00:05:12.600 --> 00:05:14.680
I hadn't slept properly for months.
00:05:16.520 --> 00:05:18.160
My family was suffering.
00:05:21.640 --> 00:05:24.200
And I was getting sick
from all the pressure.
00:05:28.320 --> 00:05:30.920
My mind couldn't deal with all that stuff.
00:05:33.440 --> 00:05:36.960
And I didn't wanna see a camera
or an edit suite ever again.
00:05:37.040 --> 00:05:38.880
I couldn't even face that.
00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:45.400
Your great purpose in life is now...
00:05:46.640 --> 00:05:47.880
just in pieces.
00:05:52.920 --> 00:05:55.640
And you've got this young child
that's growing up.
00:05:56.680 --> 00:05:57.520
Tom.
00:06:01.320 --> 00:06:04.520
I just couldn't, in that state,
be a good father to my son.
00:06:10.480 --> 00:06:12.640
I had to have a radical change.
00:06:15.440 --> 00:06:17.600
And I took inspiration from my childhood,
00:06:17.680 --> 00:06:21.080
and I took inspiration
from these master trackers
00:06:21.160 --> 00:06:22.680
I worked with in the Kalahari.
00:06:25.680 --> 00:06:27.960
And the only way I knew
how to do it was to...
00:06:28.760 --> 00:06:29.640
be in this ocean.
00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:39.360
In the beginning,
it's a hard thing to get in the water.
00:06:40.880 --> 00:06:45.200
It's one of the wildest, most scary places
to swim on the planet.
00:06:56.120 --> 00:06:59.880
The water drops to as low
as eight, nine degrees Celsius.
00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:04.600
The cold takes your breath away.
00:07:10.120 --> 00:07:12.000
And you just have to relax.
00:07:15.760 --> 00:07:18.160
And then you'll get
this beautiful window of time
00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:19.840
for 10, 15 minutes.
00:07:21.440 --> 00:07:22.320
Suddenly...
00:07:23.840 --> 00:07:25.160
everything feels okay.
00:07:33.880 --> 00:07:39.240
The cold upgrades the brain because
you're getting this flood of chemicals
00:07:39.320 --> 00:07:41.480
every time you immerse in that cold water.
00:07:45.400 --> 00:07:47.040
Your whole body comes alive.
00:07:50.640 --> 00:07:54.320
And then, as your body adapts,
it just becomes easier and easier.
00:07:55.240 --> 00:07:58.680
[gentle orchestral music plays]
00:08:02.440 --> 00:08:03.400
And eventually...
00:08:05.920 --> 00:08:07.040
after about a year...
00:08:08.520 --> 00:08:10.280
you start to crave the cold.
00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:22.600
[breathes deeply]
00:08:25.920 --> 00:08:28.640
What's so amazing about this environment
00:08:28.720 --> 00:08:31.000
is you're in a three-dimensional forest,
00:08:31.080 --> 00:08:33.760
and you can jump off the top
and go wherever you want.
00:08:35.320 --> 00:08:36.640
You're flying, basically.
00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:40.200
[piano music playing]
00:08:41.640 --> 00:08:43.799
You might as well be on another planet.
00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:53.640
You naturally just get
more relaxed in the water.
00:08:56.160 --> 00:08:59.120
You get to be able
to hold your breath for longer.
00:09:03.480 --> 00:09:06.800
Having a scuba tank in a thick kelp forest
00:09:07.640 --> 00:09:09.160
is not optimal for me.
00:09:14.440 --> 00:09:18.000
I want to be more like
an amphibious animal.
00:09:26.400 --> 00:09:30.000
Instinctively,
I knew not to wear a wet suit.
00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:36.440
If you really wanna get close to...
00:09:37.040 --> 00:09:38.520
an environment like this,
00:09:38.600 --> 00:09:42.960
it helps tremendously to have
no barrier to that environment.
00:09:51.680 --> 00:09:56.200
And I suddenly realized I've got energy
to take images and film again...
00:09:57.640 --> 00:09:59.440
and then picked up my camera again
00:09:59.520 --> 00:10:02.080
and started doing the thing I love
and what I know.
00:10:04.440 --> 00:10:07.200
[piano music soars]
00:10:08.120 --> 00:10:10.840
The animals are extremely
exotic and strange.
00:10:27.160 --> 00:10:31.440
It's, like, much more extreme
than our maddest science fiction.
00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:59.000
I remember that day when it all started.
00:11:02.160 --> 00:11:04.400
I found this very, very special area
00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:08.240
that is protected
with a big piece of kelp forest,
00:11:08.840 --> 00:11:12.080
'cause the forest itself
actually dampens the swell.
00:11:21.640 --> 00:11:23.760
And the whole forest around there
00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:26.200
is absolutely murky,
and you can't see a thing.
00:11:26.280 --> 00:11:30.120
And in this little 200-meter patch,
you can dive
00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:31.280
and observe.
00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:32.880
And it's an incredible place.
00:11:41.880 --> 00:11:45.840
And I remember there was
this strange shape to my left
00:11:45.920 --> 00:11:47.240
and just going down...
00:11:49.080 --> 00:11:52.480
and seeing this really strange thing.
00:11:52.720 --> 00:11:55.520
[delicate piano music playing]
00:12:11.800 --> 00:12:14.040
The fish even seemed to be confused.
00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:25.400
And then, suddenly...
00:12:30.440 --> 00:12:33.600
[gentle orchestral music plays]
00:12:35.160 --> 00:12:37.040
At the time, I didn't know
00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:39.040
I'd witnessed something extraordinary.
00:12:41.760 --> 00:12:44.880
I'd come in at the end of a whole drama.
00:12:50.040 --> 00:12:52.440
You think,
"What on earth is this animal doing?"
00:12:55.400 --> 00:12:57.680
And I think she was
a little bit afraid of me,
00:12:57.760 --> 00:13:00.480
so she lifted this incredibly slippery...
00:13:01.080 --> 00:13:04.120
piece of algae that you can hardly
hold with your hands
00:13:04.200 --> 00:13:07.520
and just wrapped it
in this extraordinary cloak around her
00:13:07.600 --> 00:13:09.800
and then stared at me
out of the little gap.
00:13:19.080 --> 00:13:21.920
And then, boom, you know, she was gone.
00:13:44.840 --> 00:13:46.800
It's a hard thing to explain,
00:13:46.880 --> 00:13:49.480
but sometimes you just get a feeling,
00:13:49.960 --> 00:13:51.200
and you know
00:13:51.280 --> 00:13:55.080
there's-- there's something
to this creature that's very unusual.
00:13:59.160 --> 00:14:00.800
There's something to learn here.
00:14:04.800 --> 00:14:07.000
There's something special about her.
00:14:17.600 --> 00:14:19.400
And then I had this crazy idea.
00:14:19.480 --> 00:14:22.280
What happens if I just went every day?
00:14:22.840 --> 00:14:25.720
What happens if I... I never missed a day?
00:14:35.320 --> 00:14:39.280
And, initially, she was clearly
being affected by my presence,
00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:41.480
so I thought,
"I'll leave the camera there,
00:14:41.560 --> 00:14:45.000
and then that will record her
going about her business."
00:14:49.680 --> 00:14:52.320
She sees this shiny new thing
in the forest.
00:14:58.520 --> 00:15:00.520
Coming at it with a shield,
00:15:01.280 --> 00:15:03.840
just in case it attacked,
and put up the shield.
00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:11.480
This is something different.
This is interesting.
00:15:13.880 --> 00:15:16.600
Touching it, feeling it, tasting it.
00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:25.560
If she was in a playful mood,
you couldn't leave it there for too long.
00:15:25.840 --> 00:15:27.520
She'd just pull the thing over.
00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:48.680
It took going in every day to really
get to know her environment better.
00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:55.640
Initially, it all just seems
like much of the same thing.
00:15:57.480 --> 00:16:01.280
But then, after a while, you see
all the different types of the forest.
00:16:03.680 --> 00:16:05.200
You get the old-growth forest.
00:16:08.640 --> 00:16:12.200
You get the forest with a lot
of different algae growing in the bottom.
00:16:14.280 --> 00:16:15.760
You get the misty forest.
00:16:24.160 --> 00:16:27.880
As I started to map
the environment around her den,
00:16:29.640 --> 00:16:32.960
it was shocking to see small caves
really close to her,
00:16:33.040 --> 00:16:34.840
packed with pyjama sharks.
00:16:37.120 --> 00:16:40.200
And they really are
her most serious predator.
00:16:41.920 --> 00:16:45.080
Their skin is striped.
That's why they're called a pyjama shark.
00:16:48.560 --> 00:16:50.360
They're not visual predators.
00:16:51.880 --> 00:16:55.000
But they have
an incredible sense of smell.
00:16:59.320 --> 00:17:01.280
And they are particularly aggressive.
00:17:11.280 --> 00:17:14.520
They can shove their noses
into a small crack.
00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:20.000
So they are
deadly little octopus predators.
00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:26.160
And I was thinking, "Well, how long before
something happens with these animals?"
00:17:42.560 --> 00:17:45.800
After visiting her more and more and more,
00:17:45.880 --> 00:17:49.880
there was a definite moment where...
00:17:51.520 --> 00:17:54.280
that fear had subsided tremendously.
00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:00.400
She'd see big movement,
00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:03.000
and she'd be slightly afraid
and then look, "Oh, it's him."
00:18:04.240 --> 00:18:07.600
And she'd come out and be very curious.
00:18:12.320 --> 00:18:16.600
Very interested, very curious,
but not taking stupid chances.
00:18:17.840 --> 00:18:21.880
Keeping all the other arms
attached to the den
00:18:21.960 --> 00:18:23.280
and the suckers in place.
00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:37.040
And then it just happens.
00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:40.240
I put my hand out a tiny bit.
00:18:47.280 --> 00:18:50.440
[gentle music plays]
00:19:13.280 --> 00:19:16.480
Something happens
when that animal makes contact.
00:19:29.120 --> 00:19:31.960
But, at some point,
you're gonna have to breathe.
00:19:34.640 --> 00:19:37.120
So you've got to very gently
00:19:37.640 --> 00:19:40.320
prize off those suckers
00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:42.400
without disturbing her,
00:19:43.400 --> 00:19:46.320
so that you can actually
go up and take a breath.
00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:04.600
By far the most powerful
00:20:05.640 --> 00:20:07.280
is when it comes out the den
00:20:08.040 --> 00:20:10.760
because that's when you know
there's full trust.
00:20:10.840 --> 00:20:14.760
There's no holding the arms back
just in case I have to pull back.
00:20:14.840 --> 00:20:17.800
It's like, "I totally trust this human,
00:20:18.520 --> 00:20:20.160
and I'm coming out of the den,
00:20:21.240 --> 00:20:23.080
and I'm gonna go about my business."
00:20:35.400 --> 00:20:38.440
I started to see
pretty extraordinary things.
00:20:40.560 --> 00:20:43.320
They can look spiky. They can look smooth.
00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:48.760
Grow horns on their heads.
00:20:53.400 --> 00:20:56.400
They can match color,
texture, pattern, skin.
00:20:57.000 --> 00:20:58.000
It's beautiful.
00:21:12.960 --> 00:21:16.080
Most of the time, she's jetting
or crawling or swimming.
00:21:19.280 --> 00:21:21.040
But occasionally,
00:21:21.120 --> 00:21:22.360
two legs come out.
00:21:26.440 --> 00:21:27.520
She walks.
00:21:30.360 --> 00:21:32.520
And off she goes, striding away,
00:21:33.120 --> 00:21:34.800
walking bipedally.
00:21:38.880 --> 00:21:42.680
She puts her body into this strange
posture that kind of looks like a rock.
00:21:46.920 --> 00:21:51.840
And then two of those arms underneath
slowly moving,
00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:54.960
so the rock is just slowly moving away.
00:21:59.920 --> 00:22:01.480
And then she changes
00:22:01.560 --> 00:22:05.520
into this extraordinary, wobbly,
flowy old lady in a dress.
00:22:08.960 --> 00:22:11.240
Perhaps she's trying to mimic
00:22:11.800 --> 00:22:14.120
kelp or algae moving in the swell...
00:22:15.720 --> 00:22:18.120
and, at the same time,
is slowly moving away.
00:22:20.760 --> 00:22:22.600
And this is how she works.
00:22:22.680 --> 00:22:25.920
This incredible creativity to deceive.
00:22:29.560 --> 00:22:34.720
An octopus is essentially a snail
that's lost its shell in evolution.
00:22:34.800 --> 00:22:37.120
A very fragile, liquid, soft animal
00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:39.640
that relies on tremendous intelligence.
00:22:42.600 --> 00:22:46.160
She's got no mother or father
to teach her anything. She's alone.
00:22:47.200 --> 00:22:50.880
'Cause you've got all these different
types of predators, all hunting her.
00:22:54.440 --> 00:22:57.040
So, over millions of years,
she's had to...
00:22:57.720 --> 00:23:01.480
come up with the most incredible methods
to deceive them.
00:23:06.960 --> 00:23:09.360
And she's got to learn fast because
00:23:09.440 --> 00:23:12.040
she's only got just over a year to live.
00:23:25.760 --> 00:23:30.120
When you're diving alone,
everything about my kit has to be perfect.
00:23:33.760 --> 00:23:36.240
And I've gotta be prepared
for all eventualities.
00:23:36.320 --> 00:23:39.160
I can't be fiddling around.
It's gotta be instinctive.
00:23:45.120 --> 00:23:49.560
But, at that point,
I was making a lot of mistakes.
00:23:53.120 --> 00:23:55.120
One day, she was following me.
00:23:55.200 --> 00:23:58.800
And that's the most incredible thing,
is to be followed by an octopus.
00:23:58.880 --> 00:24:02.040
You know, you're just backing away,
moving backwards,
00:24:02.120 --> 00:24:04.520
and this incredible animal
is coming towards you.
00:24:04.600 --> 00:24:07.000
And there's not
a lot of fear in it at all.
00:24:07.080 --> 00:24:08.720
It's curious, and there's trust,
00:24:08.800 --> 00:24:10.800
and it's like this fantastic feeling.
00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:13.600
[gentle piano music plays]
00:24:21.080 --> 00:24:22.320
And then, bam!
00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:24.760
I dropped one of my lenses,
00:24:25.360 --> 00:24:28.280
and that thing falling quickly
just startles that animal.
00:24:29.040 --> 00:24:32.120
And then it turns and rushes,
and it's got a huge fright.
00:24:39.640 --> 00:24:43.720
And you just... you wanna kick yourself,
because it's, you know...
00:24:44.400 --> 00:24:48.480
That could have ended in the most
incredible interaction and deep trust,
00:24:48.560 --> 00:24:49.880
and you've ruined it.
00:24:49.960 --> 00:24:52.640
Now, you know, have you ruined it forever?
00:24:53.240 --> 00:24:55.240
Uh, is that animal ever gonna trust you?
00:24:55.320 --> 00:24:58.120
Has that... has that experience
freaked it out too much?
00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:04.080
And then I approached her too fast.
00:25:04.760 --> 00:25:08.520
And that's when she left the den
and got a real fright...
00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:13.160
and didn't come back to that den.
00:25:16.560 --> 00:25:18.320
And I thought this was over.
00:25:19.440 --> 00:25:20.400
She was gone.
00:25:35.120 --> 00:25:39.960
I'd had this experience
with these incredible San master trackers.
00:25:40.840 --> 00:25:44.960
I just thought, "I wonder if anybody
could ever track anything underwater?"
00:25:50.920 --> 00:25:56.640
This animal has spent millions of years
learning to be impossible to find.
00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:08.840
I had to learn
what octopus tracks looked like.
00:26:11.200 --> 00:26:15.400
And that was very frustrating at first,
so difficult to discern.
00:26:15.480 --> 00:26:17.800
What's the difference
between octopus tracks
00:26:17.880 --> 00:26:19.440
and heart urchin tracks
00:26:19.920 --> 00:26:21.200
and fish tracks...
00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:24.200
and worm tracks?
00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:27.720
And the predation marks.
00:26:30.120 --> 00:26:31.800
The egg casings.
00:26:34.560 --> 00:26:36.080
I needed to learn everything.
00:26:49.240 --> 00:26:51.200
And then you have to start thinking...
00:26:51.760 --> 00:26:52.880
like an octopus.
00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:01.720
It's like being a detective.
00:27:02.600 --> 00:27:05.200
And you just slowly
get all your clues together.
00:27:36.720 --> 00:27:37.920
And then I started to...
00:27:38.920 --> 00:27:40.120
make breakthroughs.
00:27:46.120 --> 00:27:48.280
"Okay, those are the animals
she's killing."
00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:01.120
So I'm looking at kills. I'm looking
at little marks, diggings in the sand,
00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:04.520
little changes in the algal patterns
where she's been moving.
00:28:05.160 --> 00:28:08.920
And then knowing,
"Okay, this animal is very close now.
00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:11.800
It's close.
It's within one or two meters."
00:28:11.880 --> 00:28:14.760
And then focusing on that small space.
00:28:20.640 --> 00:28:21.800
And then, bang!
00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:23.960
She's there.
00:28:30.280 --> 00:28:34.880
Finally, after looking for her
for a week, day after day,
00:28:35.880 --> 00:28:36.960
there she was.
00:28:42.840 --> 00:28:43.720
It's like a...
00:28:44.440 --> 00:28:48.600
a human friend, like, waving
and saying, "Hi, I'm excited to see you."
00:28:53.680 --> 00:28:57.160
And I could feel it,
like from one minute to the next,
00:28:57.240 --> 00:29:00.440
"Okay, I trust you. I trust you, human.
00:29:01.320 --> 00:29:04.040
And now you can come
into my octopus world."
00:29:13.920 --> 00:29:15.480
And she's moving towards me.
00:29:16.320 --> 00:29:18.280
And my natural instinct is...
00:29:19.560 --> 00:29:21.120
to gently back away.
00:29:25.120 --> 00:29:28.720
And then I just wanted to keep still,
so I held onto a rock.
00:29:34.440 --> 00:29:35.680
She just kept coming...
00:29:37.120 --> 00:29:38.800
and then covered my whole hand.
00:29:39.600 --> 00:29:41.760
I'd been underwater
for quite a long time,
00:29:42.240 --> 00:29:46.960
so I just gently pushed for the surface,
thinking she would move off my hand.
00:29:49.360 --> 00:29:53.320
But she didn't. She just rode
on my hand right to the surface.
00:29:53.680 --> 00:29:57.080
[gentle orchestral music playing]
00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:14.960
There I was, just staring into the eyes
of this incredible creature.
00:30:40.880 --> 00:30:42.720
It was difficult to imagine at first
00:30:42.800 --> 00:30:45.680
that she was getting anything
out of the relationship.
00:30:45.760 --> 00:30:48.080
Why would a wild animal, doing its thing,
00:30:48.640 --> 00:30:50.400
get anything out of this
00:30:50.480 --> 00:30:52.480
strange human creature visiting?
00:30:56.960 --> 00:30:58.960
And this is where it gets interesting.
00:31:04.280 --> 00:31:08.160
I think quite stimulating
for that huge intelligence.
00:31:15.240 --> 00:31:19.000
Somehow, she realizes
this thing is not dangerous,
00:31:19.560 --> 00:31:22.680
so you go
and you interact with this human.
00:31:26.040 --> 00:31:30.200
And perhaps it does give you
some strange octopus level of joy.
00:31:30.840 --> 00:31:34.080
[delicate piano music playing]
00:32:01.240 --> 00:32:03.720
When you have that connection
with an animal
00:32:03.800 --> 00:32:08.120
and have those experiences,
it's absolutely mind-blowing.
00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:16.240
There's no greater feeling on earth.
00:32:24.480 --> 00:32:28.400
The boundaries between her and I
seemed to dissolve.
00:32:30.920 --> 00:32:33.040
Just the pure magnificence of her.
00:33:05.320 --> 00:33:08.120
All I could do at the time
was just think of her.
00:33:09.720 --> 00:33:11.320
In the water and on land.
00:33:14.600 --> 00:33:17.640
I mean,
it just became a bit of an obsession.
00:33:17.720 --> 00:33:20.800
You just want to visit her
every day and see what's going on.
00:33:20.880 --> 00:33:22.680
You can't wait to get back in the water.
00:33:39.960 --> 00:33:42.400
What goes through her mind?
What's she thinking?
00:33:44.120 --> 00:33:47.360
Does she dream? If she dreams,
what does she dream about?
00:33:59.800 --> 00:34:05.080
She just ignited my curiosity in a way
that I had not experienced before.
00:34:15.120 --> 00:34:17.600
It's very useful to come back home
00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:21.040
and try and read
as many scientific papers as possible.
00:34:23.639 --> 00:34:25.320
She's a common octopus.
00:34:25.400 --> 00:34:28.400
Octopus vulgaris is the scientific name.
00:34:30.480 --> 00:34:32.440
Two-thirds of her cognition
00:34:33.600 --> 00:34:36.199
is actually outside of her brain,
in her arms.
00:34:38.239 --> 00:34:42.440
Her entire being
is thinking, feeling, exploring.
00:34:44.320 --> 00:34:48.560
She's got 2,000 suckers, and she's using
all of them independently.
00:34:49.639 --> 00:34:50.639
How do you do that?
00:34:50.719 --> 00:34:52.480
Imagine having 2,000 fingers.
00:34:55.520 --> 00:34:58.760
You can compare her intelligence
to a cat or a dog
00:34:58.840 --> 00:35:01.680
or even to one of the lower primates.
00:35:02.640 --> 00:35:05.920
A mollusk shouldn't be this intelligent.
00:35:08.280 --> 00:35:12.200
So many times I'd go and search
through the scientific papers,
00:35:12.280 --> 00:35:14.480
looking for the strange thing I'd seen.
00:35:15.400 --> 00:35:18.480
And then you'd just come up
absolutely blank. There's nothing.
00:35:21.400 --> 00:35:23.760
You're going into a place
that's under-studied,
00:35:23.840 --> 00:35:29.320
and, almost on a weekly basis,
you can find out something new to science.
00:35:46.280 --> 00:35:50.280
According to the literature, octopus
are supposed to be a nocturnal species.
00:36:00.920 --> 00:36:02.840
Now, was she more active at night?
00:36:13.520 --> 00:36:15.440
It was a little bit scary in the dark.
00:36:15.520 --> 00:36:17.400
[whales moaning]
00:36:19.240 --> 00:36:22.400
These incredible sounds
of the humpback whales
00:36:22.480 --> 00:36:23.760
coming through the water.
00:36:29.800 --> 00:36:31.560
You're on hyperalert.
00:36:35.840 --> 00:36:37.920
[whales hooting]
00:36:49.240 --> 00:36:51.560
I couldn't find her.
She wasn't in her den.
00:36:53.920 --> 00:36:56.720
I'd kind of given up
and was going back to the shore.
00:37:01.880 --> 00:37:05.480
Something just made me
veer slightly to the left.
00:37:10.240 --> 00:37:11.320
And there she is...
00:37:12.720 --> 00:37:14.960
right in extremely shallow water.
00:37:17.800 --> 00:37:19.440
Can't see what she's doing.
00:37:27.800 --> 00:37:30.080
These lightning-fast strikes.
00:37:35.120 --> 00:37:37.600
Using her arm like this strange weapon.
00:37:40.320 --> 00:37:43.960
Just rolling it up
in this fraction of a second.
00:37:50.520 --> 00:37:53.240
And I saw her catch three fish like this.
00:37:54.000 --> 00:37:56.480
I'd never seen her catching a fish
during the day.
00:38:00.080 --> 00:38:03.880
Super dangerous
out in the deeper forest at night,
00:38:04.520 --> 00:38:07.520
so this incredibly clever animal
retreats to the shallows,
00:38:07.600 --> 00:38:09.960
where it's difficult
for these sharks to get to,
00:38:10.040 --> 00:38:13.560
and takes advantage
of all the wonderful food available there.
00:38:43.320 --> 00:38:47.280
The first instinct
is to try and scare the sharks away.
00:38:48.920 --> 00:38:51.040
But then you realize
00:38:51.120 --> 00:38:55.200
that you'd be interfering
with the whole process of the forest.
00:39:04.120 --> 00:39:08.880
She was out of the den,
moving around near the edge of the forest.
00:39:16.480 --> 00:39:17.600
I noticed...
00:39:18.240 --> 00:39:19.120
the shark.
00:39:26.480 --> 00:39:30.520
Body was slightly hunched forward
and was following the scent trail.
00:39:32.600 --> 00:39:33.680
This is not good.
00:39:55.320 --> 00:39:58.280
I think, "Thank God she's safe.
She's right under the rock."
00:40:03.040 --> 00:40:05.840
These things are coming
right into that crack.
00:40:12.480 --> 00:40:17.080
And the next minute, the shark is
actually clamped down on one of her arms,
00:40:17.160 --> 00:40:19.000
doing this terrifying death roll.
00:40:31.520 --> 00:40:32.960
And I can clearly see...
00:40:34.080 --> 00:40:35.560
her severed arm in its mouth.
00:40:40.600 --> 00:40:42.960
[gasps, sighs]
00:40:43.040 --> 00:40:45.320
You had that terrible feeling
in your stomach.
00:41:04.720 --> 00:41:07.840
And thank God she managed
to get really deep in that crack.
00:41:27.320 --> 00:41:32.440
She was moving very badly,
slowly, very weak.
00:41:40.760 --> 00:41:43.880
She's bleeding. That smell's in the water.
00:41:49.920 --> 00:41:52.200
There's quite a distance to the den.
00:41:59.640 --> 00:42:01.560
Are these sharks gonna pitch up again?
00:42:15.920 --> 00:42:19.440
I thought about helping her back
physically to the den.
00:42:28.600 --> 00:42:30.160
But, luckily, I didn't need to.
00:42:49.680 --> 00:42:50.800
I didn't know...
00:42:52.080 --> 00:42:55.960
what was gonna happen to her or if this
would make her weak and vulnerable,
00:42:56.040 --> 00:42:58.760
and they'd finish her off that night.
00:43:05.720 --> 00:43:07.280
And I couldn't help feeling...
00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:10.120
had I been responsible for this?
00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:13.840
Was she out because I was there?
00:43:15.680 --> 00:43:17.040
I felt very vulnerable.
00:43:17.600 --> 00:43:22.760
As if somehow what happened to her
had happened to me in some strange way.
00:43:29.920 --> 00:43:35.000
And then this almost felt,
psychologically, like I was...
00:43:35.720 --> 00:43:37.600
going through a type of dismembering.
00:43:38.240 --> 00:43:42.200
You start thinking about your own death
and your own vulnerability,
00:43:42.280 --> 00:43:44.680
worried about your family, your child.
00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:52.000
I hadn't been a person that was
overly sentimental towards animals before.
00:43:52.720 --> 00:43:54.240
I realized I was changing.
00:43:56.680 --> 00:44:00.600
She was teaching me
to become sensitized to the other.
00:44:02.520 --> 00:44:04.600
Especially wild creatures.
00:44:28.960 --> 00:44:32.840
A scary feeling,
going into the water early the next day.
00:44:47.160 --> 00:44:50.600
I was very relieved
that she was alive, breathing.
00:44:54.440 --> 00:44:58.520
She's so weak that she can't make
those vibrant colors of a healthy octopus,
00:44:58.600 --> 00:45:00.240
and she's just dull and white.
00:45:10.720 --> 00:45:13.680
And now I'm worried,
"How is she getting food?"
00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:21.920
You are crossing a line
00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:24.160
when you interfere
in the lives of animals.
00:45:24.800 --> 00:45:27.600
But I was just too overcome
00:45:28.240 --> 00:45:30.520
with my feelings for her.
00:45:38.160 --> 00:45:39.720
I don't think it really helped.
00:45:42.280 --> 00:45:47.960
And she's right at the back of the den,
you know, just not moving much.
00:45:51.240 --> 00:45:54.400
I was just checking every day
to see if she was okay,
00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:57.880
wondering, "Is this the last day?
Am I not gonna see her?"
00:46:14.120 --> 00:46:17.520
The big relief came a week or so later,
00:46:18.560 --> 00:46:22.120
and I could see
it had sort of healed over pretty fast.
00:46:27.160 --> 00:46:31.440
And then the most amazing thing,
to see this...
00:46:32.120 --> 00:46:35.920
tiny little miniature,
perfect miniature arm...
00:46:36.720 --> 00:46:37.840
starting to grow back.
00:46:46.720 --> 00:46:49.360
And it gave me
a strange sort of confidence
00:46:49.840 --> 00:46:54.120
that she can get past
this incredible difficulty.
00:46:54.920 --> 00:46:59.080
And I felt, in my life,
I was getting past the difficulties I had.
00:47:01.840 --> 00:47:05.320
In this strange way,
our lives were mirroring each other.
00:47:13.280 --> 00:47:16.800
My relationship with people,
with humans was changing.
00:47:21.120 --> 00:47:25.560
My son, at this stage, was very interested
in everything underwater.
00:47:26.720 --> 00:47:30.280
[soothing orchestral music plays]
00:47:44.720 --> 00:47:47.200
And every day, I'd tell him the stories.
00:47:55.120 --> 00:47:56.760
He'd seen her. He'd met her.
00:47:56.840 --> 00:47:58.680
I'd taken him so many times.
00:48:04.120 --> 00:48:05.960
The arm becomes pretty functional,
00:48:06.520 --> 00:48:07.840
even when it's half grown.
00:48:25.080 --> 00:48:28.360
And then, slowly, as the arm grew,
she grew her confidence back.
00:48:33.240 --> 00:48:37.160
Eventually, about 100 days later,
that arm had fully regrown.
00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:49.480
An amazing feeling to think
that this animal is capable of that
00:48:49.560 --> 00:48:52.880
and can withstand such an attack
and fully recover.
00:49:17.960 --> 00:49:22.480
After a while, she was just carrying on
with her normal activities,
00:49:22.560 --> 00:49:26.680
so I then started a whole new development
00:49:27.160 --> 00:49:30.320
of seeing even deeper into her world.
00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:39.880
It was a nice, calm, clear day.
00:49:41.440 --> 00:49:44.800
She comes around a corner
and spots a crab.
00:49:49.160 --> 00:49:50.720
The problem when you're a crab,
00:49:51.560 --> 00:49:54.080
you're being now hunted
by a liquid animal.
00:49:56.040 --> 00:49:59.360
She can pour herself
through a tiny little crack.
00:50:08.320 --> 00:50:10.440
And the crab seems to sense her
00:50:10.920 --> 00:50:16.680
and goes and hides
underneath a big, poisonous anemone.
00:50:20.320 --> 00:50:22.680
And then she waits and hides.
00:50:23.640 --> 00:50:26.640
[tense orchestral music plays]
00:50:46.960 --> 00:50:50.200
And then the crab thinks,
"Okay, everything's all right,"
00:50:50.680 --> 00:50:54.040
and makes the mistake
of leaving that anemone.
00:52:12.280 --> 00:52:15.400
[dramatic music playing]
00:52:35.640 --> 00:52:36.960
She's quite a messy eater.
00:52:37.040 --> 00:52:39.320
Bits going everywhere.
The smell's going out.
00:52:40.960 --> 00:52:45.680
And then you just look around,
and you see these brittle stars,
00:52:45.760 --> 00:52:49.280
surprisingly fast,
just being drawn to her.
00:52:55.800 --> 00:52:58.880
Just a mass of them
sort of overwhelm her,
00:52:58.960 --> 00:53:02.200
and she doesn't seem sure of what to do
or how to deal with them.
00:53:04.240 --> 00:53:06.920
So I thought,
"Yeah, this is like a real problem now.
00:53:07.200 --> 00:53:11.480
She's always gonna have this problem
of brittle stars taking all her food."
00:53:16.480 --> 00:53:19.160
Not that long in the future,
00:53:19.240 --> 00:53:23.080
she's thought, "Okay,
brittle stars are stealing my food,"
00:53:23.160 --> 00:53:26.760
and has this amazing method
of just picking them up with her suckers
00:53:26.840 --> 00:53:29.080
and gently just throwing them out the den.
00:53:32.440 --> 00:53:34.160
Now she's completely the boss.
00:53:43.960 --> 00:53:48.560
She initially adopted the same method
to crab hunting with lobster.
00:53:52.320 --> 00:53:53.600
You just suddenly see...
00:53:54.640 --> 00:53:56.800
lobsters just shooting out of the reef.
00:54:16.520 --> 00:54:19.560
I'm thinking now,
"She's definitely gonna catch this one."
00:54:30.680 --> 00:54:32.760
Time and time again, they just evade her.
00:54:40.560 --> 00:54:42.840
And then, a couple of weeks later,
00:54:43.360 --> 00:54:46.400
watching her coming round the side,
00:54:47.600 --> 00:54:49.800
corralling me so that
00:54:49.880 --> 00:54:53.360
she can then get between
the lobster and myself.
00:54:53.440 --> 00:54:56.680
Using me as part of her hunting strategy.
00:55:00.720 --> 00:55:02.520
And instead of that messy lunge...
00:55:04.800 --> 00:55:07.160
throwing her web over the top.
00:55:10.320 --> 00:55:12.240
And then there's nowhere for it to go.
00:55:20.600 --> 00:55:23.000
This is an animal that is strategizing
00:55:23.520 --> 00:55:29.440
and working out very quickly
how best to hunt a very tricky prey.
00:55:36.920 --> 00:55:39.480
A lot of her intelligence is built
00:55:39.960 --> 00:55:42.920
from the sheer number of prey
that she has to catch.
00:55:43.640 --> 00:55:45.120
All sorts of animals.
00:55:46.520 --> 00:55:50.280
All the mollusks she is capturing,
they're quite easy to catch,
00:55:50.880 --> 00:55:53.280
but they've got
these incredibly hard shells.
00:55:57.520 --> 00:56:02.200
Now, how the hell
does she kill and eat them?
00:56:06.200 --> 00:56:07.960
At the base of all those arms,
00:56:08.040 --> 00:56:10.720
there's a drill
that can drill through hard shell
00:56:13.440 --> 00:56:16.880
and then drop venom in there,
like a snake,
00:56:17.440 --> 00:56:19.800
and see how that mollusk reacts.
00:56:23.560 --> 00:56:26.720
But some of these mollusks will only relax
00:56:26.800 --> 00:56:30.520
if that drill is precisely
in the apex of the shell,
00:56:31.400 --> 00:56:32.600
on the abductor muscle.
00:56:36.160 --> 00:56:38.200
She basically has to do geometry
00:56:38.280 --> 00:56:43.320
to work out exactly the precise spot
where she needs to drill that shell
00:56:43.400 --> 00:56:44.680
in order to get her food.
00:56:48.760 --> 00:56:52.120
This is high-level
invertebrate intelligence.
00:56:53.080 --> 00:56:58.120
Her ability to learn and remember details.
00:57:01.360 --> 00:57:05.080
And it hit me
how she was teaching me so much.
00:57:11.240 --> 00:57:15.360
You just can't wait to get up in
the morning, 'cause there's so much to do
00:57:15.960 --> 00:57:19.960
to understand every little tiny mark,
00:57:20.040 --> 00:57:21.240
every little behavior,
00:57:21.320 --> 00:57:24.880
every species and what they're doing,
how they're interacting.
00:57:33.400 --> 00:57:36.560
People ask, "Why are you going
to the same place every day?"
00:57:37.240 --> 00:57:40.240
But that's when you see
the subtle differences.
00:57:40.960 --> 00:57:43.040
And that's when you get to know the wild.
00:57:46.240 --> 00:57:49.920
So when these thousands of threads
going off from the octopus
00:57:50.000 --> 00:57:52.520
to all the other animals,
predator and prey,
00:57:52.600 --> 00:57:54.680
and then this incredible forest,
00:57:55.560 --> 00:57:57.200
um, just nurturing all of this.
00:58:01.840 --> 00:58:05.360
And now I know how the helmet shell
is connected to the urchin
00:58:05.440 --> 00:58:08.040
and how the octopus
is connected to the helmet shell.
00:58:08.120 --> 00:58:10.760
And as I draw all these lines,
00:58:10.840 --> 00:58:13.440
all these stories
are just being thrown up.
00:58:28.600 --> 00:58:30.360
It's almost like the forest mind.
00:58:32.080 --> 00:58:36.000
I really could feel it. That big creature.
00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:40.680
It was thousands of times more awake
and intelligent than I am.
00:58:42.920 --> 00:58:47.800
This is like a giant underwater brain
operating over millions of years.
00:58:51.040 --> 00:58:53.160
And it just keeps everything in balance.
00:59:04.800 --> 00:59:07.560
Everything seemed, at this point...
00:59:08.560 --> 00:59:10.360
sort of perfect in the forest.
00:59:16.160 --> 00:59:18.120
And, of course, you know...
00:59:18.440 --> 00:59:20.360
[chuckling] ...you've forgotten...
00:59:21.280 --> 00:59:23.520
those predators are ever present.
00:59:43.280 --> 00:59:45.680
[ominous music playing]
01:00:06.120 --> 01:00:07.160
Just have this...
01:00:08.800 --> 01:00:13.240
burnt in my memory, this, like, huge shark
just suddenly approaching her.
01:00:21.440 --> 01:00:24.000
She kept still and tried to hide.
01:00:29.840 --> 01:00:34.320
Then you just saw the shark swimming
on the periphery, picking up her scent.
01:00:41.960 --> 01:00:44.760
And I thought,
"Oh, no, this is this whole...
01:00:46.360 --> 01:00:47.840
nightmare happening again."
01:00:47.920 --> 01:00:50.360
[suspenseful music playing]
01:01:14.840 --> 01:01:17.480
[tense, propulsive music plays]
01:01:46.000 --> 01:01:47.960
She jets up in the canopy,
01:01:48.040 --> 01:01:53.320
and she's wrapping many leaves of kelp
tightly around her body
01:01:54.520 --> 01:01:55.960
and then just peering out.
01:02:21.520 --> 01:02:23.320
All the smell's on the kelp,
01:02:23.400 --> 01:02:26.200
so the shark's now biting
and snapping at the kelp.
01:02:44.720 --> 01:02:46.160
She's shot out the back.
01:02:57.280 --> 01:02:59.280
[heavy breathing]
01:03:00.720 --> 01:03:04.200
She just climbs out over a rock,
leaves the water, and I was like...
01:03:09.080 --> 01:03:12.680
I just, you know...
almost can't believe my eyes.
01:03:17.120 --> 01:03:20.320
But the problem is, of course,
she's gotta come back.
01:03:29.240 --> 01:03:32.200
On the other side,
the shark picks up her scent again.
01:03:33.320 --> 01:03:35.280
And this crazy chase is on.
01:03:36.720 --> 01:03:39.160
[suspenseful music playing]
01:04:07.840 --> 01:04:09.840
And then, I see her,
01:04:10.880 --> 01:04:13.040
in a very quick movement,
01:04:14.080 --> 01:04:18.120
picking up maybe close
to 100 shells and stones...
01:04:20.920 --> 01:04:23.320
and then folding her arms
01:04:23.640 --> 01:04:25.120
over her vulnerable head.
01:04:26.800 --> 01:04:27.960
And in that moment,
01:04:28.600 --> 01:04:31.360
I realized,
"This is this crazy thing I saw...
01:04:32.440 --> 01:04:33.320
so long ago."
01:04:59.840 --> 01:05:01.960
Next minute, the shark grabs her.
01:05:04.880 --> 01:05:06.360
[suspenseful music playing]
01:05:24.520 --> 01:05:25.840
But I had to breathe.
01:05:26.880 --> 01:05:28.920
Rush to the surface as fast as you can.
01:05:31.760 --> 01:05:33.160
Straight back down again.
01:05:38.840 --> 01:05:41.600
And it's like,
"Okay, now, this is too crazy."
01:05:42.480 --> 01:05:47.720
Somehow she's managed to maneuver herself
into the least dangerous place,
01:05:47.800 --> 01:05:49.560
and that's on the shark's back.
01:06:01.240 --> 01:06:04.160
The shark tries to shake her off
and is swimming away.
01:06:06.840 --> 01:06:08.600
Takes a few seconds to figure out,
01:06:09.120 --> 01:06:10.760
"What the hell's going on here?"
01:06:10.840 --> 01:06:12.560
But you can immediately tell
01:06:13.120 --> 01:06:14.840
she's now got the upper hand.
01:06:14.920 --> 01:06:16.920
[mellow music playing]
01:06:27.920 --> 01:06:30.720
As the shark goes near
some of the thick kelp...
01:06:32.920 --> 01:06:34.640
she just pushes off the back...
01:06:46.400 --> 01:06:48.200
drops the remaining shells
01:06:49.200 --> 01:06:50.400
and jets away.
01:06:56.600 --> 01:06:59.600
And the shark,
it's just been completely outwitted.
01:07:32.800 --> 01:07:35.720
The shark comes, does one pass,
01:07:35.800 --> 01:07:38.760
but she's completely safe.
There's nothing it can do.
01:07:39.440 --> 01:07:40.400
And it leaves.
01:07:45.720 --> 01:07:51.000
How she can think that quickly
and make those life-and-death decisions,
01:07:51.080 --> 01:07:55.080
uh, it's just, yeah,
pretty, pretty incredible.
01:08:18.359 --> 01:08:22.680
I was around for a good
80 percent of her life.
01:08:24.439 --> 01:08:27.439
Each moment is so precious
because it's so short.
01:08:31.279 --> 01:08:33.040
There was this one incredible day.
01:08:34.080 --> 01:08:35.960
A big shoal of dream fish.
01:08:37.720 --> 01:08:39.160
Fairly shallow water.
01:08:41.560 --> 01:08:43.040
Suddenly, she's...
01:08:43.840 --> 01:08:46.080
reaching up for the surface like that.
01:08:51.920 --> 01:08:53.080
Initially, I thought...
01:08:54.120 --> 01:08:55.399
"She's hunting the fish."
01:09:02.240 --> 01:09:03.880
Then I was like, "Hold on.
01:09:04.359 --> 01:09:07.240
When she hunts, she's strategic,
and she's like...
01:09:07.840 --> 01:09:09.040
focused.
01:09:14.920 --> 01:09:17.600
This behavior
doesn't feel predatory to me."
01:09:21.640 --> 01:09:24.520
It took a long time
to actually, like, process it.
01:09:26.520 --> 01:09:28.279
But I couldn't help thinking,
01:09:28.359 --> 01:09:30.279
"She's playing with the fish."
01:09:30.359 --> 01:09:34.080
[gentle piano music plays]
01:09:45.040 --> 01:09:47.960
You see play often in social animals.
01:09:48.040 --> 01:09:53.000
Here's a highly antisocial animal
playing with fish.
01:09:56.480 --> 01:09:58.600
It takes that animal to a different level.
01:10:10.400 --> 01:10:12.880
Oh, then she completely
lost interest in the fish,
01:10:13.960 --> 01:10:15.000
rushed over...
01:10:18.000 --> 01:10:19.040
grabbed hold of me.
01:10:30.920 --> 01:10:34.400
And that was the last time
we had physical contact.
01:10:53.680 --> 01:10:55.880
[thunder rumbling]
01:11:05.000 --> 01:11:06.360
If I think back,
01:11:07.440 --> 01:11:10.520
and I remember it was a very rough day,
very turbulent.
01:11:17.720 --> 01:11:18.880
Sediment everywhere.
01:11:22.440 --> 01:11:23.680
Go down and whoa,
01:11:24.560 --> 01:11:27.080
there's another big octopus
right next to her.
01:11:34.520 --> 01:11:38.000
It's very, very rare to see
two octopus close together.
01:11:40.560 --> 01:11:42.120
"Oh, my God, what's going on?"
01:11:48.360 --> 01:11:51.800
And then seeing that both animals
are pretty relaxed
01:11:51.880 --> 01:11:55.120
and realizing,
"Okay, and then the mating is beginning."
01:12:07.080 --> 01:12:12.280
By this stage, I knew quite well
the stages of an octopus's life.
01:12:12.840 --> 01:12:16.800
So while I was very excited
that this mating was beginning,
01:12:17.400 --> 01:12:18.520
there was a sort of...
01:12:19.360 --> 01:12:22.200
this dread in the bottom of my stomach.
01:12:31.400 --> 01:12:33.120
She wasn't coming out of that den.
01:12:33.600 --> 01:12:37.480
There was no more feeding,
no more hunting.
01:12:39.120 --> 01:12:43.280
A huge part of her body
is actually given to those eggs.
01:12:43.360 --> 01:12:48.160
So she drops in weight, and she loses
an enormous amount of strength.
01:12:53.040 --> 01:12:55.720
The eggs are laid right in the back,
in the dark.
01:12:56.280 --> 01:12:57.760
It's impossible to see them.
01:13:04.560 --> 01:13:06.920
I just keep going every day
and just check.
01:13:09.120 --> 01:13:13.200
She's oxygenating the eggs
with her siphon, looking after them.
01:13:14.440 --> 01:13:16.320
She's just slowly dying
01:13:16.400 --> 01:13:21.000
and timing her death exactly
for the hatching of those eggs.
01:13:27.040 --> 01:13:29.680
I mean, it struck home so hard for me.
01:13:32.000 --> 01:13:35.920
Here's an invertebrate,
essentially a mollusk,
01:13:36.000 --> 01:13:38.080
sacrificing her own life
01:13:38.720 --> 01:13:39.800
for her young.
01:13:52.400 --> 01:13:54.720
All those eggs hatched.
01:13:55.240 --> 01:13:59.120
They're tiny,
and they go into the water column.
01:13:59.760 --> 01:14:01.360
Hundreds of thousands of them.
01:14:07.720 --> 01:14:12.600
And the next thing I saw,
she's washed out the den, barely alive.
01:14:16.600 --> 01:14:18.960
[gentle, moving music playing]
01:14:19.040 --> 01:14:21.240
And the fish, you know, feeding on her.
01:14:21.320 --> 01:14:23.840
A lot of the scavengers
coming to feed on her.
01:14:27.080 --> 01:14:28.640
It was just heartbreaking.
01:14:35.520 --> 01:14:38.520
A part of me just wanted to hold her
and chase them away.
01:14:40.200 --> 01:14:41.440
But I didn't do that.
01:14:55.320 --> 01:14:56.360
The next day...
01:14:58.200 --> 01:14:59.160
a big shark came...
01:15:12.040 --> 01:15:16.960
and just took her away,
you know, into the misty forest.
01:15:30.600 --> 01:15:34.160
Often, I go to the place of her main den.
01:15:36.200 --> 01:15:37.200
[sighs]
01:15:39.600 --> 01:15:42.320
And I just float above it
and feel her there.
01:15:44.560 --> 01:15:46.320
[choking up] Of course I miss her.
01:15:48.720 --> 01:15:49.600
Um...
01:15:54.240 --> 01:15:55.120
[sighs]
01:15:59.000 --> 01:15:59.920
But, um...
01:16:05.040 --> 01:16:07.560
I mean, in some crazy way,
it was a relief.
01:16:10.840 --> 01:16:16.760
It was a relief, because the intensity
of going every day and tracking her, um...
01:16:18.200 --> 01:16:20.640
and trying to capture, it was...
01:16:22.360 --> 01:16:23.480
It was tough in a way.
01:16:23.560 --> 01:16:25.640
I mean, I sort of slept, dreamt...
01:16:27.560 --> 01:16:28.520
this animal.
01:16:28.600 --> 01:16:30.440
I was... You know, I was...
01:16:32.840 --> 01:16:35.080
in my mind, thinking like an octopus.
01:16:35.160 --> 01:16:38.320
And... and it was all so taxing, in a way.
01:16:39.120 --> 01:16:40.200
Um...
01:16:44.280 --> 01:16:48.200
[delicate, reflective music plays]
01:16:51.720 --> 01:16:53.200
But underneath that,
01:16:53.760 --> 01:16:56.560
this incredible pride for this animal
01:16:56.640 --> 01:17:01.160
that's been through impossible odds
to get to this place.
01:17:03.920 --> 01:17:06.000
I mean, an unimaginable life.
01:17:25.040 --> 01:17:28.240
[ethereal vocal music playing]
01:17:31.120 --> 01:17:36.160
One of the most exciting things
ever in my life, taking my son,
01:17:37.160 --> 01:17:38.960
walking along the shore
01:17:39.040 --> 01:17:42.200
and just showing him
the... the wonders of nature
01:17:42.280 --> 01:17:43.360
and the details
01:17:43.440 --> 01:17:45.120
and the intricacies.
01:17:50.560 --> 01:17:54.120
I was getting so much from the wild,
and I could actually now give.
01:17:56.880 --> 01:17:59.120
I had so much energy to give back.
01:18:06.320 --> 01:18:10.560
He's like a little marine biologist now.
He knows so much.
01:18:16.160 --> 01:18:18.040
And very powerful swimmer.
01:18:21.640 --> 01:18:25.280
And as he gets older,
he seems to want to do it more and more.
01:18:35.520 --> 01:18:36.880
To see that develop,
01:18:37.600 --> 01:18:42.520
a strong sense of himself...
01:18:45.920 --> 01:18:47.720
an incredible confidence,
01:18:49.280 --> 01:18:51.040
but the most important thing,
01:18:51.600 --> 01:18:52.720
a gentleness.
01:18:53.920 --> 01:18:55.400
And I think that's the thing
01:18:55.480 --> 01:18:59.160
that thousands of hours in nature
can teach a child.
01:19:08.040 --> 01:19:10.320
A few months later, after she'd died,
01:19:10.400 --> 01:19:15.080
he actually found
this tiny little octopus.
01:19:18.400 --> 01:19:20.440
[gentle piano music playing]
01:19:20.520 --> 01:19:23.160
It's very rare
to see an animal that small.
01:19:27.640 --> 01:19:31.880
They have up to half a million young.
A handful survive.
01:19:32.560 --> 01:19:36.800
So it's a pretty tough road
they have to walk.
01:19:36.880 --> 01:19:39.440
But that's their strategy,
live fast and die young.
01:19:45.480 --> 01:19:48.880
We kind of imagined
that it might be one of her young.
01:19:50.120 --> 01:19:52.440
It was kind of the right size,
the right time.
01:19:56.920 --> 01:20:00.120
And it was joyous.
It was like, "Well, there she is."
01:20:25.240 --> 01:20:27.040
She'd made me realize
01:20:27.880 --> 01:20:30.480
just how precious wild places are.
01:20:40.320 --> 01:20:42.000
You go into that water...
01:20:44.520 --> 01:20:46.760
and it's extremely liberating.
01:20:46.840 --> 01:20:47.800
All your...
01:20:48.320 --> 01:20:52.360
worries and problems
and life drama just dissolve.
01:21:02.680 --> 01:21:06.120
You slowly start to care
about all the animals,
01:21:06.200 --> 01:21:08.440
even the tiniest little animals.
01:21:13.400 --> 01:21:17.040
You realize
that every one is very important.
01:21:21.800 --> 01:21:25.280
To sense how vulnerable
these wild animals' lives are,
01:21:26.840 --> 01:21:30.240
and actually, then how vulnerable
all our lives on this planet are.
01:21:36.640 --> 01:21:42.080
My relationship with the sea forest
and its creatures deepens...
01:21:44.880 --> 01:21:47.320
week after month after year after year.
01:21:52.400 --> 01:21:55.840
You're in touch with this wild place,
and it's speaking to you.
01:21:57.600 --> 01:21:59.000
Its language is visible.
01:22:05.920 --> 01:22:09.320
[orchestral music grows]
01:22:14.040 --> 01:22:16.360
I fell in love with her
01:22:16.440 --> 01:22:20.720
but also with that amazing wildness
that she represented
01:22:20.800 --> 01:22:22.880
and... and how that changed me.
01:22:37.840 --> 01:22:40.680
What she taught me was to feel...
01:22:41.320 --> 01:22:44.520
that you're part of this place,
not a visitor.
01:22:45.320 --> 01:22:46.880
That's a huge difference.
01:23:13.480 --> 01:23:16.680
[ethereal vocal music playing]
01:23:52.600 --> 01:23:55.280
[gentle piano playing]
01:23:55.304 --> 01:24:06.304
Telegram Channel and Instagram Page
.:: @bollbolljan_com ::.