GPO

This is an excerpt from a forum email sent out by Laurynn.
It makes me really want to get out to diving again.

"About 5 minutes later we came across a GPO [Giant Pacific Octopus] right out in the open. Okay, he wasn't full grown yet, but he demonstrated the trademark inquisitiveness and curiosity that makes me love and admire these creatures. Each of his arms were about 1ft long. I got Rob's attention and then very carefully put my hand down in the little guy's path of travel. The octo willingly climbed onto my hand and began crawling around on my hand and arm. He then, however, decided he wanted me to come home with him and began some big-league tugging action! Hilarious! He had two legs on a rock, three were exploring my hand and arm, and another three were squeezing my pinky and ring finger for all he was worth. The little guy had a surprising amount of strength. The whole time he was putting on quite the color-change show flashing from red to white and back again. All in all we had a good 5 minutes with the octo until he called 'nuff and squirted off."