One of the most exciting things about diving in BC waters is finding octopus. I think that they are on everybody’s wish list of underwater critters to spot during a dive. The question is how to find them. With a body that allows them to squeeze into any crack in a wall, they could be anywhere. I have found them in car tires, bottles, and once even in a discarded fin foot pocket.

In some places in BC - around the Port Hardy region - you can find them just in the open. It is still hard to spot them as they are masters of camouflage. You just look for boulders that are not boulders. They move in a rhythmic pattern as they move water through their blow holes to breathe.

In most places in BC, they hide during the day in cracks, either natural ones like in the rocks or man-made ones (like a car tire). We call those places hide dens and we call the octopus in them a ‘cractopus’ (you can’t claim you saw an octopus if you only saw a tentacle). But how to spot them?

The best tip is to look for a trail of broken-up crab exoskeleton. Octopuses are messy eaters and their favorite meal is crab. They expel the part of the crab they can’t eat through their blow holes outside their den. Follow the trail and you’ll find an octopus den and if you’re lucky there might be an octopus inside!

The two most common octopuses in BC are the Giant Pacific Octopus (GPO) and the Red Pacific Octopus. The Red Pacific Octopus often gets falsely Identified as a juvenile GPO as they are a lot smaller.

If you’re interested in further reading, we highly recommend Super Suckers as a great book to learn more about our Cephalopod friends.

How to find an Octopus!