60. A Long Waltz With Cephalopods

The text of this post was written for the Waterstones Book Blog. Other Minds is Waterstones non-fiction book of the month for March 2018.

A week ago, in the late afternoon, I got into the water at a site I’ve dived hundreds of times now – Cabbage Tree Bay, just north of Sydney. The conditions looked OK from up top, but there was a strong surge below, with volumes of water chugging steadily in and out, carried by a cyclone swell coming in from the Pacific. Everyone down there was collected to...