Comments : The Giant Pacific Octopus stole the show during our trip to Port Hardy this year. In fact, we saw these magnificent creatures on almost every dive. Most of the time they were hiding on walls, using anemones or kelp as cover. They often seem to fight conflicting emotions of fear and curiosity, often finding good cover then immediately sticking their eyes out of the cover to see what is going on. If you are patient, you can gently handle these octopus, but do so without gloves as they do not like neoprene (since they can't use their suckers on it). On a night dive off of Hurst Island, we encountered and interacted with an octopus with a seven foot arm span on the hunt. It was "walking" across the bottom, searching for food. We would gently reach out a scratch it between the eyes, and the animal would stop and enjoy the attention. Once we stopped the "head massage", the octopus would continue on it's hunt.