Incredible tale of a man who formed bond with an octopus
Craig Foster was diving, bare-chested, in bitterly cold waters off the southernmost tip of Africa when he saw her — an octopus hiding under a cloak of shells and stones.
Enchanted, he began following this incredibly shy creature, trying to prove he wasn’t a predator by staying very still in her presence. For weeks she evaded him: hiding in her den, camouflaging herself, or pushing her liquid body into the nearest crack to escape.
And then, after 26 days of near obsessive wooing, she reached out and touched him.
In the new Netflix documentary “My Octopus Teacher,” this tender momentmovesyouinawayyou never thought an octopus tentacle wrapped around a human hand could.
Filmed in 2010, “My Octopus Teacher” chronicles the year Foster spent cultivating a unique bond with an extraordinary creature. The nature documentary has received eight nominations for the Jackson Wild Media Award and won best feature at the EarthxFilm Festival.
Foster was able to capture intimate moments of this octopus’ short life by spending up to two hours following her every day for a year.
“If you gain the trust of that animal over a period of months, it will actually ignore you to a certain degree and carry on with its normal life, and allow you to step inside its secret world,” Foster told CNN.
We see her outwitting a shark by hitching a ride on itsback,growinganewtentacle after surviving a shark attack, and finally wasting away after laying a clutch of eggs.
“The octopus showed me many behaviors that were completely new to science, because this animal trusted me,” Foster said.
The most powerful moment for Foster was when she allowed him to follow her on a hunt.
“It’snotlikeyouareina Jeep and arrive upon a hunting scene on land,” he said.
“In the water it’s intimate.
“When she chooses to let you into her world ... it’s a very, very special moment of not just being accepted, but that your presence to her also feels natural, like you belong in that space with her.”
Foster has spent the last 10 years diving in a kelp forest in the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of South Africa where water temperatures can drop as low as 46 degrees.
Known as the “Cape of Storms,” he described this patch of ocean as “the most treacherous coast in the world.”
While some swimmers fear sharks or other predators, Foster said the greatest threat to his life is being thrown onto a rock by a big wave.