Today was a great day diving. I helped to get the boat ready, talked to the guests and after the briefing got into the water. At the first dive site. It was full of coral with a really big trigger fish, a turtle, fire gobbies, ghost pipe fish and many many more. After something like 30 minutes the topography changed to a sandy slope. Unfortunately, there were some trash hanging around. when I see trash, I cannot help but pick it up being really careful about not hurting myself or the reef while doing so. I also always look inside the cups and bottles to be sure that an octopus or something else is not hiding inside of it. Nicely enough seeing me pick up some trash the others started doing so too.

Always a nice feeling to see that you can have an impact on others! After finding a big bag underwater and having completely filled it up I started to feel a bit tired (we were already diving for 68 minutes) so after telling the guide I decided to go back up. Once on the boat I noticed that a tiny octopus was in the trash bag so asked the crew members to fill a cup with sea water to put it inside in order to show it to the team when they will be back. I grabbed what I thought to be a baby octopus and put it in the cup. As soon as it got back in some water it’s coloured popped up: nice and bright blue rings. Seeing the rings, I understood that it was a blue-ringed octopus as I heard about it a couple of days before. I showed it to the guys when they got back: they were really really excited about it. Apparently, they are quite rare but not so in South Lombok if your eyes are good enough. Also, as they were explaining to me they are highly venomous if they were to bite me! Thankfully I grabbed it by the head and not from the bottom. I could see everybody being excited but also looking at me with big eyes as they could not believe what was happening. After a couple of pictures, it was time to release it. At first, he did not want to leave the cup but after one or two minutes he accepted to let go and swim away. What an unexpected experience! A blue-ringed octopus in a cup!