Face to Face with Death - All 10cm of it

There are often jokes made about all the things in Australia that can kill you.

Snakes, spiders, crocodiles, sharks...drop bears...

Then, if it doesn't kill you, it will likely bite you and make you itchy, or poison you, or make your hand swell up like a balloon.

Let's face it, we may not have any of 'the big five' or carnivorous land dwellers, but Australia is a pretty scary place.

One of the things you always hear about is the blue ringed octopus.  This sucker, with is eight tentacles of suckers can kill you in three minutes. In a really horrific way. It's one of those things you always hear talked about but never see...like drop bears.

Until you see two of them at Point Samson while out reef walking.

Thank goodness I was actually in shoes this time.

We were with my sister and brother in law who were visiting. My Brother in law spotted the first one - and kept him out of his hidey hole with a rock until I could get there with the macro. Inches away from death. And this creature, I kid you not, was no longer than 10cm and the most vibrant blue rings I could ever imagine! The Blue rivaled glacier blue, it was almost fluorescent! We had fun taking photos, from a relatively safe distance. It was just a shame that my husband didn't see it - he had decided that he needed to confirm that there was indeed nothing at the end of the spit.

But, we did spot another one in the end. If you head over to my Instagram feed, you can see a short video I got of that one, and you can see his blue rings pulsing - getting brighter, even darker around the edges as he gets scared.

I have never been more grateful for the macro. They swam very fast but I managed to snap a few.

My Favourite - Blue Ringed Octopus cruisin' - giving these humans the evil eye

It's a pity the tentacles are out of focus in this one, but I love his eyes

One of the most fascinating things - other than the potential for a 3 minutes of excruciating death (unless someone basically performs CPR for 24 hours...) - is that the rings get brighter, but the skin around the rings also gets darker to make them stand out even more...you really can't say the don't warn you.