Hunting in the (not so) deep sea - Part 2

I started to approach the octopus with my hands forward, hoping to scare it into moving. As I came near, it's head started to seem to grow larger and then it moved an arm. I have sometimes faced situations where I don't have time for the rational thinking to kick in as a safety mechanism. More often, I have had times where I tuned out rational thinking. But most of all, I can remember several times, too many times, where rational thinking has kicked in and I just ignored the safe route, hoping for good luck. So I decided, "hey, just leave it alone." I know for sure that I don't want something bigger than me approaching in the ocean, so I ran to the house in a cold shiver.

When I arrived there (it overlooks the beach and is only a 5 minute walk), I asked Chrisa, "Hey, does an Octopus bite or sting?"
She picked her head up from her potted plants and her eyes opened wide with excitement and in her Greek accent said "You saw Octopus?"
"yeah" I casually responded.

"Where?" she asked, totally engaged.

"Right off shore, by the rocks"

"Why didn't you catch it?" she asked me like it was easy as picking an orange off a tree.

"How?"

"You just go in and grab it, oh, Boz, you should have grabbed it." She wasn't disappointed, but she sounded as if I missed a big opportunity.

"Chrisa" I paused and started to laugh "I'm from Scranton, Pennsylvania. We don't learn how to catch octopus. Ask me anything you want about a bear or a deer, the only thing I ever learned about octopus is that "octo" means eight. If you tell me it's safe and won't bite, I'll go get the octopus."

"No, you're shivering, it's too late," she was sympathetic and was giving me a way out. I didn't respond. "You remember where you saw it?"

"Yep, exactly"

"George, (long sentence in Greek followed)" she yelled to her 14 year old nephew who lived down the street and was playing Grand Theft Auto on his Sony Playstation. Within a few minutes, he walked out in his bathing suit. Chrisa handed me a knife not much bigger than a butter knife, and hardly sharper. "Here, you just grab it and jab it, and if it grab your arm, you poke it in head."

"Wait, it's gonna grab me, will it hurt? can it squeeze my arm off?"

"No, it squeeze tight and you just jab it in head," she assured me.

"What if I cut my arm?" I know myself all too well.

"Here" she handed me a steel rod the size of a crowbar. "You take this and just whack it" she demonstrated.

I started to walk away and turned back "what if if sticks onto my face, can it suffocate me?"
Her Silence was my answer.

I'm sure I looked real tough as I walked down to the beach with George, handed him the rod, and strode forward with a knife in my hand. We walked out to the rock, I spotted the octopus and we went to work, ready for our plan of attack. George speaks very little English, I can say "yes" "no" and "thank you" in Greek. We were standing two feet away from each other with lethal weapons, and we couldn't communicate about who would do what. We were certain to draw blood, just not very likely octopus blood. To cap it off, we only had one mask and snorkel. I let George go first, since he has done this before. He looked at it for a while then immediately went to poke it with the rod. Instead of swimming right into my hands and impaling itself on my knife as I had envisioned, it retreated entirely underneath the rock. For 30 minutes, we took turns with the mask and went underwater and poked around the rock. I tried to lift the rock several times, which was much too heavy. It was difficult to keep myself from floating back to the surface, so more of the energy was spent actually getting my feet and body low enough so I could get decent leverage on the rock. George knew to wear the mask and look for the octopus when I tried to lift it. The few times I managed to move the rock, he saw nothing.

In denial that this octopus could have escaped us, we continued this for ten minutes, taking time to shiver, when we finally gave up. It was almost pitch black out and we were purple and blue. We walked back, not quite dejected, but I was determined to learn about octopus and research it and how to catch it for the next time I come to Ikaria. I declared that my next trip would have me catching fresh octopus every night. I've since learned that the octopus is considered the smartest invertebrate, as smart as the average housecat. I guess I was out of my league.