PHOTO: DRONE FANATICS SA
Mossel Bay photographer and videographer Christiaan Stopforth had an extraordinary encounter with an elusive and scarcely seen blanket octopus in the harbour.
Blanket octopuses spend their whole lives, three to five years, floating in the open ocean and when they feel threatened, they swoop down into deeper waters with their capes flowing behind them.
Stopforth was at Mossel Bay's National Sea Rescue Institute's Station 15 for its open day just after 12:00 on Saturday, 8 March, when he spotted something vibrantly violet-coloured, with hues of red and blue, swimming in the water.
He saw it was an octopus and jumped into the water to swim alongside it and get some photographs and video footage of it.
According to information published on www.oceanconservancy.org in January 2023, the blanket octopus is rarely encountered by humans.
