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to care about and protect it,” he says.
His snack finished, Foster gets up to give a tour
of his collections. An old library card catalog has
been repurposed as a specimen case, each drawer
containing shells found in the abandoned den of an
octopus. Some octopuses were limpet specialists;
others hunted giant turbo snails. As Foster points
out a tiny hole in an abalone shell that shows where
an octopus has drilled down to get at the creature
inside, his quiet reserve disappears. Each item has
a story, and he starts tripping over his words in
an attempt to tell them all. “This is a helmet shell
snail,” he says, picking up a creamy orange spiral. It
took him two years of dedicated tracking to figure
out how it killed sea urchins—something, he says,
“even scientists didn’t know.”
One doesn’t need an exotic location (or an octo-
pus) to reconnect with nature, Foster says. While
he was fortunate to have the ocean at his door-
step, wildlife teachers can be found anywhere,
even in the middle of a city. “If you suddenly
took one tree in New York and figured out how
that tree changed over 365 days and what animals
interacted with it, what insects live in there, how
that tree is surviving, I think that could have quite
a large effect on your life.”
For Foster, it’s that intimate knowledge that of-
fers real transformation. Just a few months shy of
completing his 10-year vow, Foster says he can’t
imagine ever giving up his daily dives. He’s not even
tempted to dive anywhere else. “The amazing thing
is that when you get to know this kelp forest like I
have, it’s the most exciting place to dive on earth be-
cause you’re just about to solve 10 amazing myster-
ies. You know that crab. You know that octopus, and
you just can’t wait to know them better.”
And the discoveries keep coming. Just this
morning he found an unusual sea star, one that
was blue when it should have been orange. Is it an
aberration? A mutation? Or a whole new species?
He doesn’t know, but he can’t wait to get back into
the water to learn more. As with the octopus that
changed his life, “it always starts with these little
mysteries... all these mysteries you’re trying to
figure out.” With any luck, that sea star may be-
come his next teacher.
‘It’s the
most
exciting
place
to dive
because
you’re just
about to
solve 10
mysteries.’
CRAIG FOSTER,
shown above
with an octopus,
on diving in the
kelp forest near
his home
ROSS FRYLINCK—THE SEA CHANGE PROJECT
