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Downloaded from
YTS.MX
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[waves crashing]
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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX
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[seagull squawking]
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[female chanting playing]
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[man] A lot of people say
that an octopus is like an alien.
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But the strange thing is,
as you get closer to them,
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you realize that we're very similar
in a lot of ways.
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You're stepping
into this completely different world.
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Such an incredible feeling.
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And you feel you're on the brink
of something extraordinary.
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[upbeat orchestral music playing]
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But you realize
that there's a line that can't be crossed.
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[tense music playing]
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It's quite a long time ago now,
that day when it all started.
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[thunder rumbling]
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[seagulls squawking]
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This place on the tip of Africa
is known as the Cape of Storms.
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My childhood memories
are completely dominated
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by the rocky shore, the intertidal
and the kelp forest.
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We had this little wooden bungalow,
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literally below the high-water mark.
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So when those huge storms
used to come in,
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the ocean used to smash the doors down
and fill up the bottom of the house.
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So it was incredibly exciting as a child
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to literally live
in the force of that giant Atlantic Ocean.
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Most of my childhood
was spent in the rock pools,
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diving in the shallow kelp forest.
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That's what I most loved to do.
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As an adult, I'd been separated from that.
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And that was fine at first.
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Until I went to the central Kalahari
about 20 years ago.
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I was making a film
called The Great Dance with my brother.
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And then I met these men
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who were probably
some of the best trackers in the world.
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To watch these men...
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go into the incredible,
subtle signs in nature,
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things that my eye couldn't even see,
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and then follow them, sometimes for hours,
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and find hidden animals in the landscape
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was just extraordinary to witness.
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I mean, they just were
inside of the natural world.
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And I could feel I was outside.
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And I had this deep longing
to be inside that world.
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I went through two years of absolute hell.
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[indistinct chattering]
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I had been working hard for a long time,
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I'd just worn myself out.
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I hadn't slept properly for months.
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My family was suffering.
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And I was getting sick
from all the pressure.
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My mind couldn't deal with all that stuff.
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And I didn't wanna see a camera
or an edit suite ever again.
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I couldn't even face that.
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Your great purpose in life is now...
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just in pieces.
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And you've got this young child
that's growing up.
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Tom.
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I just couldn't, in that state,
be a good father to my son.
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I had to have a radical change.
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And I took inspiration from my childhood,
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and I took inspiration
from these master trackers
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I worked with in the Kalahari.
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And the only way I knew
how to do it was to...
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be in this ocean.
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In the beginning,
it's a hard thing to get in the water.
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It's one of the wildest, most scary places
to swim on the planet.
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The water drops to as low
as eight, nine degrees Celsius.
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The cold takes your breath away.
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And you just have to relax.
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And then you'll get
this beautiful window of time
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for 10, 15 minutes.
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Suddenly...
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everything feels okay.
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The cold upgrades the brain because
you're getting this flood of chemicals
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every time you immerse in that cold water.
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Your whole body comes alive.
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And then, as your body adapts,
it just becomes easier and easier.
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[gentle orchestral music plays]
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And eventually...
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after about a year...
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you start to crave the cold.
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[breathes deeply]
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What's so amazing about this environment
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is you're in a three-dimensional forest,
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and you can jump off the top
and go wherever you want.
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You're flying, basically.
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[piano music playing]
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You might as well be on another planet.
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You naturally just get
more relaxed in the water.
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You get to be able
to hold your breath for longer.
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Having a scuba tank in a thick kelp forest
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is not optimal for me.
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I want to be more like
an amphibious animal.
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Instinctively,
I knew not to wear a wet suit.
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If you really wanna get close to...
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an environment like this,
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it helps tremendously to have
no barrier to that environment.
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And I suddenly realized I've got energy
to take images and film again...
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and then picked up my camera again
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and started doing the thing I love
and what I know.
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[piano music soars]
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The animals are extremely
exotic and strange.
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It's, like, much more extreme
than our maddest science fiction.
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I remember that day when it all started.
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I found this very, very special area
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that is protected
with a big piece of kelp forest,
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'cause the forest itself
actually dampens the swell.
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And the whole forest around there
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is absolutely murky,
and you can't see a thing.
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And in this little 200-meter patch,
you can dive
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and observe.
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And it's an incredible place.
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And I remember there was
this strange shape to my left
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and just going down...
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and seeing this really strange thing.
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[delicate piano music playing]
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The fish even seemed to be confused.
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And then, suddenly...
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[gentle orchestral music plays]
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At the time, I didn't know
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I'd witnessed something extraordinary.
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I'd come in at the end of a whole drama.
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You think,
"What on earth is this animal doing?"
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And I think she was
a little bit afraid of me,
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so she lifted this incredibly slippery...
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piece of algae that you can hardly
hold with your hands
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and just wrapped it
in this extraordinary cloak around her
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and then stared at me
out of the little gap.
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And then, boom, you know, she was gone.
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It's a hard thing to explain,
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but sometimes you just get a feeling,
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and you know
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there's-- there's something
to this creature that's very unusual.
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There's something to learn here.
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There's something special about her.
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And then I had this crazy idea.
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What happens if I just went every day?
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What happens if I... I never missed a day?
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And, initially, she was clearly
being affected by my presence,
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so I thought,
"I'll leave the camera there,
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and then that will record her
going about her business."
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She sees this shiny new thing
in the forest.
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Coming at it with a shield,
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just in case it attacked,
and put up the shield.
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This is something different.
This is interesting.
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Touching it, feeling it, tasting it.
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If she was in a playful mood,
you couldn't leave it there for too long.
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She'd just pull the thing over.
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It took going in every day to really
get to know her environment better.
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Initially, it all just seems
like much of the same thing.
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But then, after a while, you see
all the different types of the forest.
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You get the old-growth forest.
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You get the forest with a lot
of different algae growing in the bottom.
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You get the misty forest.
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As I started to map
the environment around her den,
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it was shocking to see small caves
really close to her,
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packed with pyjama sharks.
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And they really are
her most serious predator.
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Their skin is striped.
That's why they're called a pyjama shark.
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They're not visual predators.
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But they have
an incredible sense of smell.
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And they are particularly aggressive.
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They can shove their noses
into a small crack.
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So they are
deadly little octopus predators.
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And I was thinking, "Well, how long before
something happens with these animals?"
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After visiting her more and more and more,
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there was a definite moment where...
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that fear had subsided tremendously.
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She'd see big movement,
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and she'd be slightly afraid
and then look, "Oh, it's him."
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And she'd come out and be very curious.
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Very interested, very curious,
but not taking stupid chances.
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Keeping all the other arms
attached to the den
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and the suckers in place.
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And then it just happens.
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I put my hand out a tiny bit.
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[gentle music plays]
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Something happens
when that animal makes contact.
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But, at some point,
you're gonna have to breathe.
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So you've got to very gently
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prize off those suckers
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without disturbing her,
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so that you can actually
go up and take a breath.
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By far the most powerful
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is when it comes out the den
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because that's when you know
there's full trust.
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There's no holding the arms back
just in case I have to pull back.
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It's like, "I totally trust this human,
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and I'm coming out of the den,
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and I'm gonna go about my business."
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I started to see
pretty extraordinary things.
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They can look spiky. They can look smooth.
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Grow horns on their heads.
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They can match color,
texture, pattern, skin.
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It's beautiful.
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Most of the time, she's jetting
or crawling or swimming.
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But occasionally,
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two legs come out.
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She walks.
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And off she goes, striding away,
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walking bipedally.
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She puts her body into this strange
posture that kind of looks like a rock.
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And then two of those arms underneath
slowly moving,
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so the rock is just slowly moving away.
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And then she changes
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into this extraordinary, wobbly,
flowy old lady in a dress.
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Perhaps she's trying to mimic
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kelp or algae moving in the swell...
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and, at the same time,
is slowly moving away.
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And this is how she works.
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This incredible creativity to deceive.
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An octopus is essentially a snail
that's lost its shell in evolution.
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A very fragile, liquid, soft animal
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that relies on tremendous intelligence.
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She's got no mother or father
to teach her anything. She's alone.
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'Cause you've got all these different
types of predators, all hunting her.
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So, over millions of years,
she's had to...
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come up with the most incredible methods
to deceive them.
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And she's got to learn fast because
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she's only got just over a year to live.
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When you're diving alone,
everything about my kit has to be perfect.
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And I've gotta be prepared
for all eventualities.
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I can't be fiddling around.
It's gotta be instinctive.
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But, at that point,
I was making a lot of mistakes.
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One day, she was following me.
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And that's the most incredible thing,
is to be followed by an octopus.
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You know, you're just backing away,
moving backwards,
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and this incredible animal
is coming towards you.
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And there's not
a lot of fear in it at all.
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It's curious, and there's trust,
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and it's like this fantastic feeling.
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[gentle piano music plays]
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And then, bam!
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I dropped one of my lenses,
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and that thing falling quickly
just startles that animal.
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And then it turns and rushes,
and it's got a huge fright.
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And you just... you wanna kick yourself,
because it's, you know...
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That could have ended in the most
incredible interaction and deep trust,
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and you've ruined it.
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Now, you know, have you ruined it forever?
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Uh, is that animal ever gonna trust you?
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Has that... has that experience
freaked it out too much?
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And then I approached her too fast.
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And that's when she left the den
and got a real fright...
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and didn't come back to that den.
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And I thought this was over.
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She was gone.
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I'd had this experience
with these incredible San master trackers.
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I just thought, "I wonder if anybody
could ever track anything underwater?"
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This animal has spent millions of years
learning to be impossible to find.
252
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:08,840
I had to learn
what octopus tracks looked like.
253
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:15,400
And that was very frustrating at first,
so difficult to discern.
254
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:17,800
What's the difference
between octopus tracks
255
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:19,440
and heart urchin tracks
256
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:21,200
and fish tracks...
257
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:24,200
and worm tracks?
258
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:27,720
And the predation marks.
259
00:26:30,120 --> 00:26:31,800
The egg casings.
260
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:36,080
I needed to learn everything.
261
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:51,200
And then you have to start thinking...
262
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:52,880
like an octopus.
263
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:01,720
It's like being a detective.
264
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:05,200
And you just slowly
get all your clues together.
265
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:37,920
And then I started to...
266
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:40,120
make breakthroughs.
267
00:27:46,120 --> 00:27:48,280
"Okay, those are the animals
she's killing."
268
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:01,120
So I'm looking at kills. I'm looking
at little marks, diggings in the sand,
269
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:04,520
little changes in the algal patterns
where she's been moving.
270
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:08,920
And then knowing,
"Okay, this animal is very close now.
271
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:11,800
It's close.
It's within one or two meters."
272
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:14,760
And then focusing on that small space.
273
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:21,800
And then, bang!
274
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:23,960
She's there.
275
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:34,880
Finally, after looking for her
for a week, day after day,
276
00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:36,960
there she was.
277
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:43,720
It's like a...
278
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:48,600
a human friend, like, waving
and saying, "Hi, I'm excited to see you."
279
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:57,160
And I could feel it,
like from one minute to the next,
280
00:28:57,240 --> 00:29:00,440
"Okay, I trust you. I trust you, human.
281
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:04,040
And now you can come
into my octopus world."
282
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:15,480
And she's moving towards me.
283
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:18,280
And my natural instinct is...
284
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:21,120
to gently back away.
285
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:28,720
And then I just wanted to keep still,
so I held onto a rock.
286
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:35,680
She just kept coming...
287
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:38,800
and then covered my whole hand.
288
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:41,760
I'd been underwater
for quite a long time,
289
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:46,960
so I just gently pushed for the surface,
thinking she would move off my hand.
290
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:53,320
But she didn't. She just rode
on my hand right to the surface.
291
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:57,080
[gentle orchestral music playing]
292
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:14,960
There I was, just staring into the eyes
of this incredible creature.
293
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:42,720
It was difficult to imagine at first
294
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:45,680
that she was getting anything
out of the relationship.
295
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:48,080
Why would a wild animal, doing its thing,
296
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:50,400
get anything out of this
297
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:52,480
strange human creature visiting?
298
00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:58,960
And this is where it gets interesting.
299
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:08,160
I think quite stimulating
for that huge intelligence.
300
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:19,000
Somehow, she realizes
this thing is not dangerous,
301
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:22,680
so you go
and you interact with this human.
302
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:30,200
And perhaps it does give you
some strange octopus level of joy.
303
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,080
[delicate piano music playing]
304
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:03,720
When you have that connection
with an animal
305
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:08,120
and have those experiences,
it's absolutely mind-blowing.
306
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,240
There's no greater feeling on earth.
307
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:28,400
The boundaries between her and I
seemed to dissolve.
308
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:33,040
Just the pure magnificence of her.
309
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:08,120
All I could do at the time
was just think of her.
310
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:11,320
In the water and on land.
311
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:17,640
I mean,
it just became a bit of an obsession.
312
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:20,800
You just want to visit her
every day and see what's going on.
313
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:22,680
You can't wait to get back in the water.
314
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:42,400
What goes through her mind?
What's she thinking?
315
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:47,360
Does she dream? If she dreams,
what does she dream about?
316
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:05,080
She just ignited my curiosity in a way
that I had not experienced before.
317
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:17,600
It's very useful to come back home
318
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:21,040
and try and read
as many scientific papers as possible.
319
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:25,320
She's a common octopus.
320
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:28,400
Octopus vulgaris is the scientific name.
321
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:32,440
Two-thirds of her cognition
322
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:36,200
is actually outside of her brain,
in her arms.
323
00:34:38,240 --> 00:34:42,440
Her entire being
is thinking, feeling, exploring.
324
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:48,560
She's got 2,000 suckers, and she's using
all of them independently.
325
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:50,640
How do you do that?
326
00:34:50,720 --> 00:34:52,480
Imagine having 2,000 fingers.
327
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:58,760
You can compare her intelligence
to a cat or a dog
328
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:01,680
or even to one of the lower primates.
329
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,920
A mollusk shouldn't be this intelligent.
330
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:12,200
So many times I'd go and search
through the scientific papers,
331
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:14,480
looking for the strange thing I'd seen.
332
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,480
And then you'd just come up
absolutely blank. There's nothing.
333
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:23,760
You're going into a place
that's under-studied,
334
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:29,320
and, almost on a weekly basis,
you can find out something new to science.
335
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:50,280
According to the literature, octopus
are supposed to be a nocturnal species.
336
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:02,840
Now, was she more active at night?
337
00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:15,440
It was a little bit scary in the dark.
338
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:17,400
[whales moaning]
339
00:36:19,240 --> 00:36:22,400
These incredible sounds
of the humpback whales
340
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:23,760
coming through the water.
341
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:31,560
You're on hyperalert.
342
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:37,920
[whales hooting]
343
00:36:49,240 --> 00:36:51,560
I couldn't find her.
She wasn't in her den.
344
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:56,720
I'd kind of given up
and was going back to the shore.
345
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,480
Something just made me
veer slightly to the left.
346
00:37:10,240 --> 00:37:11,320
And there she is...
347
00:37:12,720 --> 00:37:14,960
right in extremely shallow water.
348
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:19,440
Can't see what she's doing.
349
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:30,080
These lightning-fast strikes.
350
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:37,600
Using her arm like this strange weapon.
351
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:43,960
Just rolling it up
in this fraction of a second.
352
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:53,240
And I saw her catch three fish like this.
353
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,480
I'd never seen her catching a fish
during the day.
354
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:03,880
Super dangerous
out in the deeper forest at night,
355
00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:07,520
so this incredibly clever animal
retreats to the shallows,
356
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:09,960
where it's difficult
for these sharks to get to,
357
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:13,560
and takes advantage
of all the wonderful food available there.
358
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:47,280
The first instinct
is to try and scare the sharks away.
359
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:51,040
But then you realize
360
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:55,200
that you'd be interfering
with the whole process of the forest.
361
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:08,880
She was out of the den,
moving around near the edge of the forest.
362
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:17,600
I noticed...
363
00:39:18,240 --> 00:39:19,120
the shark.
364
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:30,520
Body was slightly hunched forward
and was following the scent trail.
365
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:33,680
This is not good.
366
00:39:55,320 --> 00:39:58,280
I think, "Thank God she's safe.
She's right under the rock."
367
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:05,840
These things are coming
right into that crack.
368
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:17,080
And the next minute, the shark is
actually clamped down on one of her arms,
369
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:19,000
doing this terrifying death roll.
370
00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:32,960
And I can clearly see...
371
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:35,560
her severed arm in its mouth.
372
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:42,960
[gasps, sighs]
373
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:45,320
You had that terrible feeling
in your stomach.
374
00:41:04,720 --> 00:41:07,840
And thank God she managed
to get really deep in that crack.
375
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:32,440
She was moving very badly,
slowly, very weak.
376
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:43,880
She's bleeding. That smell's in the water.
377
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:52,200
There's quite a distance to the den.
378
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:01,560
Are these sharks gonna pitch up again?
379
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:19,440
I thought about helping her back
physically to the den.
380
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:30,160
But, luckily, I didn't need to.
381
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:50,800
I didn't know...
382
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:55,960
what was gonna happen to her or if this
would make her weak and vulnerable,
383
00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:58,760
and they'd finish her off that night.
384
00:43:05,720 --> 00:43:07,280
And I couldn't help feeling...
385
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:10,120
had I been responsible for this?
386
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:13,840
Was she out because I was there?
387
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:17,040
I felt very vulnerable.
388
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:22,760
As if somehow what happened to her
had happened to me in some strange way.
389
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:35,000
And then this almost felt,
psychologically, like I was...
390
00:43:35,720 --> 00:43:37,600
going through a type of dismembering.
391
00:43:38,240 --> 00:43:42,200
You start thinking about your own death
and your own vulnerability,
392
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:44,680
worried about your family, your child.
393
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:52,000
I hadn't been a person that was
overly sentimental towards animals before.
394
00:43:52,720 --> 00:43:54,240
I realized I was changing.
395
00:43:56,680 --> 00:44:00,600
She was teaching me
to become sensitized to the other.
396
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:04,600
Especially wild creatures.
397
00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:32,840
A scary feeling,
going into the water early the next day.
398
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:50,600
I was very relieved
that she was alive, breathing.
399
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:58,520
She's so weak that she can't make
those vibrant colors of a healthy octopus,
400
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:00,240
and she's just dull and white.
401
00:45:10,720 --> 00:45:13,680
And now I'm worried,
"How is she getting food?"
402
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:21,920
You are crossing a line
403
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:24,160
when you interfere
in the lives of animals.
404
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:27,600
But I was just too overcome
405
00:45:28,240 --> 00:45:30,520
with my feelings for her.
406
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:39,720
I don't think it really helped.
407
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:47,960
And she's right at the back of the den,
you know, just not moving much.
408
00:45:51,240 --> 00:45:54,400
I was just checking every day
to see if she was okay,
409
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:57,880
wondering, "Is this the last day?
Am I not gonna see her?"
410
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:17,520
The big relief came a week or so later,
411
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:22,120
and I could see
it had sort of healed over pretty fast.
412
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:31,440
And then the most amazing thing,
to see this...
413
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:35,920
tiny little miniature,
perfect miniature arm...
414
00:46:36,720 --> 00:46:37,840
starting to grow back.
415
00:46:46,720 --> 00:46:49,360
And it gave me
a strange sort of confidence
416
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:54,120
that she can get past
this incredible difficulty.
417
00:46:54,920 --> 00:46:59,080
And I felt, in my life,
I was getting past the difficulties I had.
418
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:05,320
In this strange way,
our lives were mirroring each other.
419
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:16,800
My relationship with people,
with humans was changing.
420
00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:25,560
My son, at this stage, was very interested
in everything underwater.
421
00:47:26,720 --> 00:47:30,280
[soothing orchestral music plays]
422
00:47:44,720 --> 00:47:47,200
And every day, I'd tell him the stories.
423
00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:56,760
He'd seen her. He'd met her.
424
00:47:56,840 --> 00:47:58,680
I'd taken him so many times.
425
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:05,960
The arm becomes pretty functional,
426
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:07,840
even when it's half grown.
427
00:48:25,080 --> 00:48:28,360
And then, slowly, as the arm grew,
she grew her confidence back.
428
00:48:33,240 --> 00:48:37,160
Eventually, about 100 days later,
that arm had fully regrown.
429
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:49,480
An amazing feeling to think
that this animal is capable of that
430
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:52,880
and can withstand such an attack
and fully recover.
431
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:22,480
After a while, she was just carrying on
with her normal activities,
432
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:26,680
so I then started a whole new development
433
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:30,320
of seeing even deeper into her world.
434
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:39,880
It was a nice, calm, clear day.
435
00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:44,800
She comes around a corner
and spots a crab.
436
00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:50,720
The problem when you're a crab,
437
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:54,080
you're being now hunted
by a liquid animal.
438
00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:59,360
She can pour herself
through a tiny little crack.
439
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:10,440
And the crab seems to sense her
440
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:16,680
and goes and hides
underneath a big, poisonous anemone.
441
00:50:20,320 --> 00:50:22,680
And then she waits and hides.
442
00:50:23,640 --> 00:50:26,640
[tense orchestral music plays]
443
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:50,200
And then the crab thinks,
"Okay, everything's all right,"
444
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:54,040
and makes the mistake
of leaving that anemone.
445
00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:15,400
[dramatic music playing]
446
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:36,960
She's quite a messy eater.
447
00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:39,320
Bits going everywhere.
The smell's going out.
448
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:45,680
And then you just look around,
and you see these brittle stars,
449
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:49,280
surprisingly fast,
just being drawn to her.
450
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:58,880
Just a mass of them
sort of overwhelm her,
451
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:02,200
and she doesn't seem sure of what to do
or how to deal with them.
452
00:53:04,240 --> 00:53:06,920
So I thought,
"Yeah, this is like a real problem now.
453
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:11,480
She's always gonna have this problem
of brittle stars taking all her food."
454
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:19,160
Not that long in the future,
455
00:53:19,240 --> 00:53:23,080
she's thought, "Okay,
brittle stars are stealing my food,"
456
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:26,760
and has this amazing method
of just picking them up with her suckers
457
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:29,080
and gently just throwing them out the den.
458
00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:34,160
Now she's completely the boss.
459
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:48,560
She initially adopted the same method
to crab hunting with lobster.
460
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:53,600
You just suddenly see...
461
00:53:54,640 --> 00:53:56,800
lobsters just shooting out of the reef.
462
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:19,560
I'm thinking now,
"She's definitely gonna catch this one."
463
00:54:30,680 --> 00:54:32,760
Time and time again, they just evade her.
464
00:54:40,560 --> 00:54:42,840
And then, a couple of weeks later,
465
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:46,400
watching her coming round the side,
466
00:54:47,600 --> 00:54:49,800
corralling me so that
467
00:54:49,880 --> 00:54:53,360
she can then get between
the lobster and myself.
468
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:56,680
Using me as part of her hunting strategy.
469
00:55:00,720 --> 00:55:02,520
And instead of that messy lunge...
470
00:55:04,800 --> 00:55:07,160
throwing her web over the top.
471
00:55:10,320 --> 00:55:12,240
And then there's nowhere for it to go.
472
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:23,000
This is an animal that is strategizing
473
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:29,440
and working out very quickly
how best to hunt a very tricky prey.
474
00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:39,480
A lot of her intelligence is built
475
00:55:39,960 --> 00:55:42,920
from the sheer number of prey
that she has to catch.
476
00:55:43,640 --> 00:55:45,120
All sorts of animals.
477
00:55:46,520 --> 00:55:50,280
All the mollusks she is capturing,
they're quite easy to catch,
478
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:53,280
but they've got
these incredibly hard shells.
479
00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:02,200
Now, how the hell
does she kill and eat them?
480
00:56:06,200 --> 00:56:07,960
At the base of all those arms,
481
00:56:08,040 --> 00:56:10,720
there's a drill
that can drill through hard shell
482
00:56:13,440 --> 00:56:16,880
and then drop venom in there,
like a snake,
483
00:56:17,440 --> 00:56:19,800
and see how that mollusk reacts.
484
00:56:23,560 --> 00:56:26,720
But some of these mollusks will only relax
485
00:56:26,800 --> 00:56:30,520
if that drill is precisely
in the apex of the shell,
486
00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:32,600
on the abductor muscle.
487
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:38,200
She basically has to do geometry
488
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:43,320
to work out exactly the precise spot
where she needs to drill that shell
489
00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:44,680
in order to get her food.
490
00:56:48,760 --> 00:56:52,120
This is high-level
invertebrate intelligence.
491
00:56:53,080 --> 00:56:58,120
Her ability to learn and remember details.
492
00:57:01,360 --> 00:57:05,080
And it hit me
how she was teaching me so much.
493
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
494
00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:19,960
to understand every little tiny mark,
495
00:57:20,040 --> 00:57:21,240
every little behavior,
496
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:24,880
every species and what they're doing,
how they're interacting.
497
00:57:33,400 --> 00:57:36,560
People ask, "Why are you going
to the same place every day?"
498
00:57:37,240 --> 00:57:40,240
But that's when you see
the subtle differences.
499
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:43,040
And that's when you get to know the wild.
500
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:49,920
So when these thousands of threads
going off from the octopus
501
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:52,520
to all the other animals,
predator and prey,
502
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:54,680
and then this incredible forest,
503
00:57:55,560 --> 00:57:57,200
um, just nurturing all of this.
504
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:05,360
And now I know how the helmet shell
is connected to the urchin
505
00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:08,040
and how the octopus
is connected to the helmet shell.
506
00:58:08,120 --> 00:58:10,760
And as I draw all these lines,
507
00:58:10,840 --> 00:58:13,440
all these stories
are just being thrown up.
508
00:58:28,600 --> 00:58:30,360
It's almost like the forest mind.
509
00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:36,000
I really could feel it. That big creature.
510
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:40,680
It was thousands of times more awake
and intelligent than I am.
511
00:58:42,920 --> 00:58:47,800
This is like a giant underwater brain
operating over millions of years.
512
00:58:51,040 --> 00:58:53,160
And it just keeps everything in balance.
513
00:59:04,800 --> 00:59:07,560
Everything seemed, at this point...
514
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:10,360
sort of perfect in the forest.
515
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:18,120
And, of course, you know...
516
00:59:18,440 --> 00:59:20,360
[chuckling] ...you've forgotten...
517
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:23,520
those predators are ever present.
518
00:59:43,280 --> 00:59:45,680
[ominous music playing]
519
01:00:06,120 --> 01:00:07,160
Just have this...
520
01:00:08,800 --> 01:00:13,240
burnt in my memory, this, like, huge shark
just suddenly approaching her.
521
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:24,000
She kept still and tried to hide.
522
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:34,320
Then you just saw the shark swimming
on the periphery, picking up her scent.
523
01:00:41,960 --> 01:00:44,760
And I thought,
"Oh, no, this is this whole...
524
01:00:46,360 --> 01:00:47,840
nightmare happening again."
525
01:00:47,920 --> 01:00:50,360
[suspenseful music playing]
526
01:01:14,840 --> 01:01:17,480
[tense, propulsive music plays]
527
01:01:46,000 --> 01:01:47,960
She jets up in the canopy,
528
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:53,320
and she's wrapping many leaves of kelp
tightly around her body
529
01:01:54,520 --> 01:01:55,960
and then just peering out.
530
01:02:21,520 --> 01:02:23,320
All the smell's on the kelp,
531
01:02:23,400 --> 01:02:26,200
so the shark's now biting
and snapping at the kelp.
532
01:02:44,720 --> 01:02:46,160
She's shot out the back.
533
01:02:57,280 --> 01:02:59,280
[heavy breathing]
534
01:03:00,720 --> 01:03:04,200
She just climbs out over a rock,
leaves the water, and I was like...
535
01:03:09,080 --> 01:03:12,680
I just, you know...
almost can't believe my eyes.
536
01:03:17,120 --> 01:03:20,320
But the problem is, of course,
she's gotta come back.
537
01:03:29,240 --> 01:03:32,200
On the other side,
the shark picks up her scent again.
538
01:03:33,320 --> 01:03:35,280
And this crazy chase is on.
539
01:03:36,720 --> 01:03:39,160
[suspenseful music playing]
540
01:04:07,840 --> 01:04:09,840
And then, I see her,
541
01:04:10,880 --> 01:04:13,040
in a very quick movement,
542
01:04:14,080 --> 01:04:18,120
picking up maybe close
to 100 shells and stones...
543
01:04:20,920 --> 01:04:23,320
and then folding her arms
544
01:04:23,640 --> 01:04:25,120
over her vulnerable head.
545
01:04:26,800 --> 01:04:27,960
And in that moment,
546
01:04:28,600 --> 01:04:31,360
I realized,
"This is this crazy thing I saw...
547
01:04:32,440 --> 01:04:33,320
so long ago."
548
01:04:59,840 --> 01:05:01,960
Next minute, the shark grabs her.
549
01:05:04,880 --> 01:05:06,360
[suspenseful music playing]
550
01:05:24,520 --> 01:05:25,840
But I had to breathe.
551
01:05:26,880 --> 01:05:28,920
Rush to the surface as fast as you can.
552
01:05:31,760 --> 01:05:33,160
Straight back down again.
553
01:05:38,840 --> 01:05:41,600
And it's like,
"Okay, now, this is too crazy."
554
01:05:42,480 --> 01:05:47,720
Somehow she's managed to maneuver herself
into the least dangerous place,
555
01:05:47,800 --> 01:05:49,560
and that's on the shark's back.
556
01:06:01,240 --> 01:06:04,160
The shark tries to shake her off
and is swimming away.
557
01:06:06,840 --> 01:06:08,600
Takes a few seconds to figure out,
558
01:06:09,120 --> 01:06:10,760
"What the hell's going on here?"
559
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:12,560
But you can immediately tell
560
01:06:13,120 --> 01:06:14,840
she's now got the upper hand.
561
01:06:14,920 --> 01:06:16,920
[mellow music playing]
562
01:06:27,920 --> 01:06:30,720
As the shark goes near
some of the thick kelp...
563
01:06:32,920 --> 01:06:34,640
she just pushes off the back...
564
01:06:46,400 --> 01:06:48,200
drops the remaining shells
565
01:06:49,200 --> 01:06:50,400
and jets away.
566
01:06:56,600 --> 01:06:59,600
And the shark,
it's just been completely outwitted.
567
01:07:32,800 --> 01:07:35,720
The shark comes, does one pass,
568
01:07:35,800 --> 01:07:38,760
but she's completely safe.
There's nothing it can do.
569
01:07:39,440 --> 01:07:40,400
And it leaves.
570
01:07:45,720 --> 01:07:51,000
How she can think that quickly
and make those life-and-death decisions,
571
01:07:51,080 --> 01:07:55,080
uh, it's just, yeah,
pretty, pretty incredible.
572
01:08:18,360 --> 01:08:22,680
I was around for a good
80 percent of her life.
573
01:08:24,440 --> 01:08:27,440
Each moment is so precious
because it's so short.
574
01:08:31,280 --> 01:08:33,040
There was this one incredible day.
575
01:08:34,080 --> 01:08:35,960
A big shoal of dream fish.
576
01:08:37,720 --> 01:08:39,160
Fairly shallow water.
577
01:08:41,560 --> 01:08:43,040
Suddenly, she's...
578
01:08:43,840 --> 01:08:46,080
reaching up for the surface like that.
579
01:08:51,920 --> 01:08:53,080
Initially, I thought...
580
01:08:54,120 --> 01:08:55,400
"She's hunting the fish."
581
01:09:02,240 --> 01:09:03,880
Then I was like, "Hold on.
582
01:09:04,360 --> 01:09:07,240
When she hunts, she's strategic,
and she's like...
583
01:09:07,840 --> 01:09:09,040
focused.
584
01:09:14,920 --> 01:09:17,600
This behavior
doesn't feel predatory to me."
585
01:09:21,640 --> 01:09:24,520
It took a long time
to actually, like, process it.
586
01:09:26,520 --> 01:09:28,280
But I couldn't help thinking,
587
01:09:28,360 --> 01:09:30,280
"She's playing with the fish."
588
01:09:30,360 --> 01:09:34,080
[gentle piano music plays]
589
01:09:45,040 --> 01:09:47,960
You see play often in social animals.
590
01:09:48,040 --> 01:09:53,000
Here's a highly antisocial animal
playing with fish.
591
01:09:56,480 --> 01:09:58,600
It takes that animal to a different level.
592
01:10:10,400 --> 01:10:12,880
Oh, then she completely
lost interest in the fish,
593
01:10:13,960 --> 01:10:15,000
rushed over...
594
01:10:18,000 --> 01:10:19,040
grabbed hold of me.
595
01:10:30,920 --> 01:10:34,400
And that was the last time
we had physical contact.
596
01:10:53,680 --> 01:10:55,880
[thunder rumbling]
597
01:11:05,000 --> 01:11:06,360
If I think back,
598
01:11:07,440 --> 01:11:10,520
and I remember it was a very rough day,
very turbulent.
599
01:11:17,720 --> 01:11:18,880
Sediment everywhere.
600
01:11:22,440 --> 01:11:23,680
Go down and whoa,
601
01:11:24,560 --> 01:11:27,080
there's another big octopus
right next to her.
602
01:11:34,520 --> 01:11:38,000
It's very, very rare to see
two octopus close together.
603
01:11:40,560 --> 01:11:42,120
"Oh, my God, what's going on?"
604
01:11:48,360 --> 01:11:51,800
And then seeing that both animals
are pretty relaxed
605
01:11:51,880 --> 01:11:55,120
and realizing,
"Okay, and then the mating is beginning."
606
01:12:07,080 --> 01:12:12,280
By this stage, I knew quite well
the stages of an octopus's life.
607
01:12:12,840 --> 01:12:16,800
So while I was very excited
that this mating was beginning,
608
01:12:17,400 --> 01:12:18,520
there was a sort of...
609
01:12:19,360 --> 01:12:22,200
this dread in the bottom of my stomach.
610
01:12:31,400 --> 01:12:33,120
She wasn't coming out of that den.
611
01:12:33,600 --> 01:12:37,480
There was no more feeding,
no more hunting.
612
01:12:39,120 --> 01:12:43,280
A huge part of her body
is actually given to those eggs.
613
01:12:43,360 --> 01:12:48,160
So she drops in weight, and she loses
an enormous amount of strength.
614
01:12:53,040 --> 01:12:55,720
The eggs are laid right in the back,
in the dark.
615
01:12:56,280 --> 01:12:57,760
It's impossible to see them.
616
01:13:04,560 --> 01:13:06,920
I just keep going every day
and just check.
617
01:13:09,120 --> 01:13:13,200
She's oxygenating the eggs
with her siphon, looking after them.
618
01:13:14,440 --> 01:13:16,320
She's just slowly dying
619
01:13:16,400 --> 01:13:21,000
and timing her death exactly
for the hatching of those eggs.
620
01:13:27,040 --> 01:13:29,680
I mean, it struck home so hard for me.
621
01:13:32,000 --> 01:13:35,920
Here's an invertebrate,
essentially a mollusk,
622
01:13:36,000 --> 01:13:38,080
sacrificing her own life
623
01:13:38,720 --> 01:13:39,800
for her young.
624
01:13:52,400 --> 01:13:54,720
All those eggs hatched.
625
01:13:55,240 --> 01:13:59,120
They're tiny,
and they go into the water column.
626
01:13:59,760 --> 01:14:01,360
Hundreds of thousands of them.
627
01:14:07,720 --> 01:14:12,600
And the next thing I saw,
she's washed out the den, barely alive.
628
01:14:16,600 --> 01:14:18,960
[gentle, moving music playing]
629
01:14:19,040 --> 01:14:21,240
And the fish, you know, feeding on her.
630
01:14:21,320 --> 01:14:23,840
A lot of the scavengers
coming to feed on her.
631
01:14:27,080 --> 01:14:28,640
It was just heartbreaking.
632
01:14:35,520 --> 01:14:38,520
A part of me just wanted to hold her
and chase them away.
633
01:14:40,200 --> 01:14:41,440
But I didn't do that.
634
01:14:55,320 --> 01:14:56,360
The next day...
635
01:14:58,200 --> 01:14:59,160
a big shark came...
636
01:15:12,040 --> 01:15:16,960
and just took her away,
you know, into the misty forest.
637
01:15:30,600 --> 01:15:34,160
Often, I go to the place of her main den.
638
01:15:36,200 --> 01:15:37,200
[sighs]
639
01:15:39,600 --> 01:15:42,320
And I just float above it
and feel her there.
640
01:15:44,560 --> 01:15:46,320
[choking up] Of course I miss her.
641
01:15:48,720 --> 01:15:49,600
Um...
642
01:15:54,240 --> 01:15:55,120
[sighs]
643
01:15:59,000 --> 01:15:59,920
But, um...
644
01:16:05,040 --> 01:16:07,560
I mean, in some crazy way,
it was a relief.
645
01:16:10,840 --> 01:16:16,760
It was a relief, because the intensity
of going every day and tracking her, um...
646
01:16:18,200 --> 01:16:20,640
and trying to capture, it was...
647
01:16:22,360 --> 01:16:23,480
It was tough in a way.
648
01:16:23,560 --> 01:16:25,640
I mean, I sort of slept, dreamt...
649
01:16:27,560 --> 01:16:28,520
this animal.
650
01:16:28,600 --> 01:16:30,440
I was... You know, I was...
651
01:16:32,840 --> 01:16:35,080
in my mind, thinking like an octopus.
652
01:16:35,160 --> 01:16:38,320
And... and it was all so taxing, in a way.
653
01:16:39,120 --> 01:16:40,200
Um...
654
01:16:44,280 --> 01:16:48,200
[delicate, reflective music plays]
655
01:16:51,720 --> 01:16:53,200
But underneath that,
656
01:16:53,760 --> 01:16:56,560
this incredible pride for this animal
657
01:16:56,640 --> 01:17:01,160
that's been through impossible odds
to get to this place.
658
01:17:03,920 --> 01:17:06,000
I mean, an unimaginable life.
659
01:17:25,040 --> 01:17:28,240
[ethereal vocal music playing]
660
01:17:31,120 --> 01:17:36,160
One of the most exciting things
ever in my life, taking my son,
661
01:17:37,160 --> 01:17:38,960
walking along the shore
662
01:17:39,040 --> 01:17:42,200
and just showing him
the... the wonders of nature
663
01:17:42,280 --> 01:17:43,360
and the details
664
01:17:43,440 --> 01:17:45,120
and the intricacies.
665
01:17:50,560 --> 01:17:54,120
I was getting so much from the wild,
and I could actually now give.
666
01:17:56,880 --> 01:17:59,120
I had so much energy to give back.
667
01:18:06,320 --> 01:18:10,560
He's like a little marine biologist now.
He knows so much.
668
01:18:16,160 --> 01:18:18,040
And very powerful swimmer.
669
01:18:21,640 --> 01:18:25,280
And as he gets older,
he seems to want to do it more and more.
670
01:18:35,520 --> 01:18:36,880
To see that develop,
671
01:18:37,600 --> 01:18:42,520
a strong sense of himself...
672
01:18:45,920 --> 01:18:47,720
an incredible confidence,
673
01:18:49,280 --> 01:18:51,040
but the most important thing,
674
01:18:51,600 --> 01:18:52,720
a gentleness.
675
01:18:53,920 --> 01:18:55,400
And I think that's the thing
676
01:18:55,480 --> 01:18:59,160
that thousands of hours in nature
can teach a child.
677
01:19:08,040 --> 01:19:10,320
A few months later, after she'd died,
678
01:19:10,400 --> 01:19:15,080
he actually found
this tiny little octopus.
679
01:19:18,400 --> 01:19:20,440
[gentle piano music playing]
680
01:19:20,520 --> 01:19:23,160
It's very rare
to see an animal that small.
681
01:19:27,640 --> 01:19:31,880
They have up to half a million young.
A handful survive.
682
01:19:32,560 --> 01:19:36,800
So it's a pretty tough road
they have to walk.
683
01:19:36,880 --> 01:19:39,440
But that's their strategy,
live fast and die young.
684
01:19:45,480 --> 01:19:48,880
We kind of imagined
that it might be one of her young.
685
01:19:50,120 --> 01:19:52,440
It was kind of the right size,
the right time.
686
01:19:56,920 --> 01:20:00,120
And it was joyous.
It was like, "Well, there she is."
687
01:20:25,240 --> 01:20:27,040
She'd made me realize
688
01:20:27,880 --> 01:20:30,480
just how precious wild places are.
689
01:20:40,320 --> 01:20:42,000
You go into that water...
690
01:20:44,520 --> 01:20:46,760
and it's extremely liberating.
691
01:20:46,840 --> 01:20:47,800
All your...
692
01:20:48,320 --> 01:20:52,360
worries and problems
and life drama just dissolve.
693
01:21:02,680 --> 01:21:06,120
You slowly start to care
about all the animals,
694
01:21:06,200 --> 01:21:08,440
even the tiniest little animals.
695
01:21:13,400 --> 01:21:17,040
You realize
that every one is very important.
696
01:21:21,800 --> 01:21:25,280
To sense how vulnerable
these wild animals' lives are,
697
01:21:26,840 --> 01:21:30,240
and actually, then how vulnerable
all our lives on this planet are.
698
01:21:36,640 --> 01:21:42,080
My relationship with the sea forest
and its creatures deepens...
699
01:21:44,880 --> 01:21:47,320
week after month after year after year.
700
01:21:52,400 --> 01:21:55,840
You're in touch with this wild place,
and it's speaking to you.
701
01:21:57,600 --> 01:21:59,000
Its language is visible.
702
01:22:05,920 --> 01:22:09,320
[orchestral music grows]
703
01:22:14,040 --> 01:22:16,360
I fell in love with her
704
01:22:16,440 --> 01:22:20,720
but also with that amazing wildness
that she represented
705
01:22:20,800 --> 01:22:22,880
and... and how that changed me.
706
01:22:37,840 --> 01:22:40,680
What she taught me was to feel...
707
01:22:41,320 --> 01:22:44,520
that you're part of this place,
not a visitor.
708
01:22:45,320 --> 01:22:46,880
That's a huge difference.
709
01:23:13,480 --> 01:23:16,680
[ethereal vocal music playing]
710
01:23:52,600 --> 01:23:55,280
[gentle piano playing]