Whidbey Island divers looked for octopuses on a recent weekend to help with the Seattle Aquarium’s Puget Sound Octopus Census.

Diver Henry Powers said a group from Whidbey Island Dive Shop submerged Feb. 15 and 16 at the Keystone Jetty looking for the giant Pacific octopus. The group spotted five of the tentacled creatures that Saturday and four on that Sunday.

The counts were done at specific sites around Puget Sound and are part of an overall octopus census.

Powers knows the undersea territory well, having made almost weekly dives at Keystone Jetty for more than eight years.

Powers said for divers at Keystone Spit, almost every day can be Octopus Day.

“But it takes an experienced eye to see an octopus,” he added. “I’ve seen divers looking right at an octopus and not know what they are looking at.”

The animals are elusive, Powers said, because they can camouflage themselves so well.

“I don’t see them out on rocks very often,” he said. “Most of the time they are in their lairs.”

Powers explained that octopi — also called cephalopods — wrinkle their skin and change its color to look as much like rock as possible.

“The trick to spotting an octopus is knowing what to look for,” he said.

When Powers dives, he looks for sand pushed away next to rocks and for piles of shells.

“They eat crabs and scallops, then spit out the shells,” he said.

While Powers said spotting octopuses at Keystone is “almost guaranteed,” there are times when he “can’t find an octopus for anything.”

Not only can underwater explorers find octopuses at Keystone Jetty, but they can also enjoy the all the sea life they can spot as well as the varied diving conditions.

According to Jason Flake of Aqua Sports in Bellingham, Feb. 16 was a slow diving day.

“Usually you can see 25 or 30 people out here,” he said.

Fewer than 15 people were suiting up that afternoon. Flake added that windy conditions might have kept people off the beach. Flake dives at Keystone quite a bit because it’s easy to get in to the beach and he always sees great marine life.

“Octopus here are always great,” he said.

According to diver Greg Snyder, visibility Sunday morning wasn’t good. “The water was murky and visibility was down to 10 feet,” he said. “I shined my flashlight into rocks and saw octopuses hunkered down. They don’t want to be bothered.”