The Octopus Whisperer | Vancouver Sun

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Krystal Janicki’s first octopus was exactly how she’d imagined: “weird, slimy, gross, evil, ominous.”

Janicki was on her 60th dive, exploring a shipwreck off the coast of Vancouver Island when her diving partner gave her the signal: a fist over waving fingers. Octopus lurking.

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She’d heard of masks knocked off, regulators grabbed out of mouths, and whole boats dragged down, according to mariner’s lore.

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“I lost all my buoyancy, all my control of breathing. I was a disaster,” said Janicki.

But when the octopus unfurled its arm and reached for her diving partner in a gesture that was sincere, curious, kind and gentle, her fear dissolved.

“I knew I had to learn everything I could about them,” said Janicki. Over the next nine years she spent thousands of hours submerged in the waters off Vancouver Island getting to know the creatures she once feared. Among other divers, Janicki became known as the Octopus Whisperer.

Now the extraordinary relationships she developed with these creatures has been captured by Vancouver island cinematographer Maxwel Hohn for a National Geographic documentary series, Secrets of the Octopus.

Hohn and Janicki joined an international crew, hired by SeaLight Pictures, for the production that spans multiple countries to capture the secret lives of different species of octopus, including the Giant Pacific Octopus, the largest in the world.

The crew, from Australia, quickly realized they were out of their element in Canadian waters and unaccustomed to the dramatic currents of the intertidal zones, the depths of almost 2,000 metres, and the cold water. They turned to Hohn.

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“Filming aquatic animals requires a tonne of time. You can’t dictate what the wildlife does. We had to try and find an octopus who was camera ready— some are nervous, skittish or shy,” said Hohn.

Finding the octopus was challenging — they change dens frequently and are adept at hiding. Janicki gets a sixth sense when there is an octopus nearby.

When she finds a den — a pile of cockle shells or broken crab shells are dead giveaways as they’re messy eaters — she feels goosebumps. She slows her breathing, lowers her dive light, presents herself at arm’s distance and waits, not moving for up to 70 minutes.

She speaks to them silently, tells them they are beautiful, explains what she is up to and waits to lock eyes.

“If the octopus wants an encounter, they reach out an arm and touch me, my mask, my cheek, my hand, my dive light.  I will slowly move in closer and present myself while two or three or four arms reach out to explore me.”

The octopus is tasting her, processing information, getting to know her. If they like her, they’ll show her around. “They start going for a walk, looking back at me, as if to say — are you coming — moving along rock walls, reefs, their hunting grounds and then back home,” said Janicki.

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It’s almost as if they are speaking to her through their gestures.

It took several dives before Janicki, Hahn and their crew found the octopus who was camera ready and willing to participate in their shoot.

The den was underneath an old tire, next to a kelp forest. “I relaxed, turned my light off, held out my hand and let the octopus make eye contact. We clicked, and it was game on.”

The octopus came right out and began to explore her — at one point  even taking a seat on Hahn’s head — before walking them up to a beautiful reef where the sun beamed through the water. “It was as if we had hung out for a lifetime,” Janicki said

It’s almost as if they are speaking to her through their gestures.

Janicki said she wants to learn to be more like an octopus, with their eight arms, nine brains and three hearts.

“I want to be brilliant, to be creative, to be able to live with others, but also on my own, to be still, to create environments out of nothing, and make them into homes.”

Secrets of the Octopus is now streaming on Disney+ within Canada

dryan@postmedia.com

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