I was out last night on the hookah rig doing maintenance on the outside of Aquarius and I saw some interesting things. I came across an octopus that was about 2 or 3 feet long, but it is difficult to give an actual length because part of the time he was bunched up trying to mimic the bottom and other times he would really extend some of his tentacles to grab things and become a few feet longer. I followed him for a little while and eventually I gave in to the urge to try to gently pick him up (setting a bad example by someone who should know better as a marine biologist). I was afraid that actually grabbing him might cause injury to the octopus, so I tried to scoop him up with my hands and arms surrounding him. I managed to get him up off the bottom but it only took a couple of seconds before he squeezed out of the small spaces between my hands and arms. Apparently the whole encounter just made him angry because instead of trying to get away, which he could have accomplished easily, he reached out with several tentacles and grabbed onto my hand and began pulling it toward him. When I did not resist and started reaching to grab him again he let go and squeezed his entire body into a crack that was less than an inch wide. Later that night a very large male loggerhead turtle swam up and settled down on the sand about 15 feet away from me. He walked around the sand in a small circle on his fins in a way that looked clumsy and comical. After a minute of stumbling around he decided it was not the spot he was looking for and swam off again. There are twenty or more snook around the habitat this mission. I usually take breaks when I am working outside to watch them shoot in to catch the baitfish and small jacks and grunts that school in large numbers in the habitat lights. Periodically large numbers of squid fly into the clouds of baitfish to feed, but they are instantly attacked and eaten in a feeding frenzy by barracudas, snook, and jacks that dash in out of the darkness like bolts of lightning and then disappear back into the night. The sun is coming up now. I have another day to get ready for, so I will end here and will hopefully have more interesting dives to write about later.