Cove 2 on a Monday night was a quite place.  Never at any time was the parking lot full, and when we finished diving (we did one dive) our two cars were the only ones on that side of the parking lot.

 

Monday was octopus night.  Wow, seems to be lots of them around right now.  Near the boundary we found a big one under some plates.  Good sized animal, at least as large as the one from Redondo that was out for a stroll (if you want to see video of that one, come to the meeting on 1/28).  The hole was not so deep and one could have reached in to touch it.  We did not do that, just looked and took pictures.

 

On the trip over to the rockpiles we found another similar sized octopus out.  It was near death.  While it had enough strength to pump water with its siphon, it could not pull two of its tentacles away from marauding sun stars.  It was a sad sight, and part of the cycle.

 

A curious red octopus peeked from its hole at the edge of an old tire.  Its amazing that as small as these guys are they have so much curiosity they will let us get really close before disappearing.

 

So on we went.  Two coxcombs were out of their burrow and got caught by the camera's flash.  A mid-sized decorated warbonnet hung on the bottom of one of the logs, just as securely as if he sat on top of the log.  Ho DO they do that?  The big decorated warbonnet was still in the log near the Honeybear.

 

Under the Honeybear was the big one.  This octopus has scoured out a very large space under the wreck.  This is a huge animal.  Maybe the largest I have ever seen (though I saw another rather large on at Keystone one time).  It fills most of the large space and has set up the entrance so it is rather narrow and difficult to shoot video.  The largest suckers range up around 4 inches by my guess (it does not let me measure them, LOL).  Pieter too, was wowed by the size of this cephalopod, truly a GIANT pacific octopus.

 

Water temperature was about 45 and visibility had picked up to 25 feet or so in most of the area.  The work barge is still there, but not in the way of diving when they are not working.