In One Ear: 'I was speechless'

Angela Whitlock, of Seaside, the marine program coordinator with the North Coast Land Conservancy, had her own marine close encounter on April 25, when she met up with a giant Pacific octopus while strolling in a tide pool near Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach.

“I was coming about in one direction, and the octopus was coming towards me under the water, and I gasped,” Whitlock told KGW. “I think the octopus did, too, because it was like a speckled white all of a sudden. I think we both gasped at each other.” She had the good fortune to have her phone on her and was able to retrieve it to record the event.

“I finally got my camera working, and that’s when the octopus came out,” she recalled. “It had turned its maroon color again. It just came right up to my feet and tucked itself around my feet, and it was checking me out. It did a little back-and-forth dance for a little while, and it was just so magical, I was speechless.”

“I like to think maybe it was giving me a little hug,” she said of her “magical moment” with the octopus, “and saying thanks for being a coastal conservationist.”