Octopus and Rat Attack
I got involved in some hunting last weekend. There is no large game in the jungles of Kwajalein atoll so the sportsman must seek his game in and around the water for the most part. Sunday I awoke to a gloriously splendid day. The skies were blue and the air was warm as usual. It was my day to go diving. The week prior my friend Jeff had lost his dive knife on the wreck of a Japanese cargo ship that had been sunk during the battle here. He asked if we could go back to it to try to find it so we did. But we didn’t have any luck finding the knife. For our second dive we chose a coral head off of Third Island. It was beautiful there as usual. We saw the usual assortment of fish, coral, and sharks….
While I was diving a Marshallese friend of mine was busy catching fish for my aquarium. As mentioned in previous articles I have had a terrible time trying to catch them myself using the latest in fish catching technology. My friend used his bare hands and caught seven beautiful little fish. He presented them to me in an old Tupperware bowl with dried paint on the outside. You need to understand that I’m fairly fussy about what I put my fish in. I have buckets especially dedicated to my fish that never touch any sort of cleaning solvents or anything else I consider toxic to my beloved fish. I may have disappointed him at first because I didn’t immediately dump them in my tank. Instead I followed the recommendations of experts and carefully placed them in a zip-lock bag then floated the bag in my tank for 20 minutes followed by another 15 of letting the water mix. This is to let the fish gradually adjust to the change in water conditions. But my diligence paid off as the fish have survived despite being chased by their larger tank mates when they first arrived.
Figure 1 Mark in the embrace of an Octopus
Monday afternoon (our Sunday), a group of my friends invited me to go out on a boat down to 6th Island to go snorkeling. Once again the weather was picture perfect and the visibility in the water was excellent even for here. You have to appreciate that normally I start whining when the viz is down below a hundred feet. I can’t tell you how far you could see underwater that day but when you looked down from the boat you could not even see the water. It was like we were floating on air. We did the normal snorkeling stuff and hanging around the boat talking story etc. Then someone got the bright idea that we should land on the island and try to catch cocoanut crabs. I could have cared less about it but decided to go with everyone to see how it was done and to explore the island. Oh by the way, we didn’t actually land on the island because that would be trespassing and against the regulations which we would never dream of breaking. But if we had this is what would have happened. We landed and started to make our way through the jungle. Two of my friends spotted a cache of old bottles left over from the war. Most of them were old coke bottles. I found one that was stamped with the date 1944 (I think) that I have kept to give to my sister as a Christmas present. We hiked further into the jungle and found some hermit crabs. A Marshallese lady who was with us taught us how you can blow into the shell and the crabs will come out. I’m not sure what you are suppose to do with them when they come out but it might come in handy to know sometime. We never did find any cocoanut crabs. Eventually we made our way back to the water and started swimming to the boat. Meanwhile, two of my other friends, Gene and Sandra, had spotted an octopus on one of the coral heads and were watching it. Another guy Mark, had his Japanese girlfriend visiting him and she had been bugging him to catch an octopus for her to eat. So Mark decided this was his chance. Gene, Sandra, and I were just kind of floating there watching the octopus go in and out of his hole. All of a sudden I see Mark dive down to the bottom and stick his hand in the hole. He pulled out the octopus. I could see a huge trail of ink that the octopus squirted as he tried in vein to defend himself. Having never seen them actually ink before I was surprised at the quantity. But this wasn’t his only tactic to resist. He grabbed a hold of Mark’s arm and would not let go. Gene dove down and started pulling on the octopus’s head to keep it from biting Mark. The thought crossed my mind to help but I was too busy laughing. It would help if you knew Mark. He is a tall, lean, muscular, ex-Marine from Oklahoma who had been shot several times while serving our country on various excursions around the world. He is very gregarious and resembles the prototypical cowboy. Yet this tiny octopus was getting the best of him and Gene. The others on the boat said they could hear Mark yelling and cussing from under the water. 
Figure 2 Mark and his catch
They made it to the surface and Gene tried to pull the tentacles off of Mark. He should be especially commended because he was laughing as hard as I was while he was doing it.
Figure 3 The marks on Mark’s arms
The 3 of them (Mark, Gene, and the octopus) eventually made it to the boat where another tug of war ensued to try to get the octopus off so he could climb in. The two of them eventually made it on the boat and we peeled the octopus off. Mark’s arm was covered in sucker marks. He said it felt like little mouths biting him. They took the octopus home and Umi (his girlfriend) chopped it up and mixed in some onions and other garnishments and ate it raw. Mark wanted no part of it but did call me up to offer to let me eat some. I thanked him but declined the offer. He said the part of the octopus that wasn’t being eaten was still changing colors even after it was chopped up.
Figure 4 The Catch du Jour
This wasn’t Mark’s first octopus encounter. What I’m about to tell you may seem incredulous but it was witnessed and it actually did happen. Mark and this dude from Palau named Frazier were out trying to catch lobsters one night close to the fuel pier. Mark had some success and was carrying a hard shell lobster in one hand and a soft shell in the other. A large puffer fish came up and checked him out. The fish decided the soft shell was more appetizing so he literally swallowed Mark’s arm and lobster all the way up to his elbow. While trying to free himself of the puffer fish an octopus clamped onto his shoulder. At that point he decided the best escape was to go to the surface so up he went heedless of the pier on top of him. He banged his head on the pier and blood was trickling down his forehead. Naturally at this point, Frazier who had seen it all, was doubled up in laughter. Mark’s next thought was that shark’s would smell the blood and attempt to make him their dinner. But he made it out of it without further attacks except to his dignity from the rest of us laughing at his ordeal. It really did happen.
Figure 5 Umi and her dinner
When I mentioned that there wasn’t game on the island I was not including the rats which are huge. Well, I’m station manager of the local radio station, KVZI 97.9 FM. Our studio is infested with rats. So I decided it was about time I did something about it so I cleaned the station, removing all food items. Then I called the pest control to have them come out. A friendly Marshallese guy named Ronnie came out and set two traps. He used cocoanut for bait and tinged it a bit with a lighter to give it some odor to attract the rats. The next day we went back to see if we caught anything. The first trap was empty but I was shocked to see that the second trap had two rats in it. Evidently they both had found the bait and must have simultaneously bit it at the same time or else the one was happily chewing on it and his clumsier friend bit in and set the trap snapping the necks of both of them. We keep checking the traps expecting to find more but so far we haven’t.
One Response to “Octopus and Rat Attack”
 Comment by Richard Jones September 15th, 2007 at 9:50 am |
Hmmm, I suppose thats one way to catch an octopus… BTW, 13 new visitors… a new record!!! Changing that location made all the difference. |