Oatlands

So apprently, the movie, My Octopus Teacher, was shot here in South Africa in a very special underwater scenery called kelp forest. Kelp is also called seabamboo as they are pretty similar plants with thick stems and growing 40 cm per day, woah. The kelp forest is home to many special sea species including octopus, sea stars, sea urchins and more. The app only allows me to upload one video but if you want to see the beauty I saw and the animals I played with you must click on the link below. 🤩

Two fun facts from today:
- Devon already told me about this in the Kruger but I just couldn’t get myself to believe him so I fact-checked with the diving instructor and here’s the result. You know how are hands and feet get wrinkly when in water? Were you also told that it’s because of dehydration and therefore shouldn’t stay in the water for too long? Yep, this is all wrong. Actually, the wrinkles are an automatic reaction of our bodies ADAPTING to water so that the wrinkles can help us grip better under water. 😲😲😲 Crazy!!! PS. If you stay long enough in the water your gills will also stsrt to show. 😂😂 Okay, this is a joke, but the gripping is true, promise hahaha. 🐠

- Sorry for breaking your worlds if you’ve seen and loved the movie: it’s sadly full of lies. 🥹 It is not one octopus all the time as the movie was shot over 2-3 years and an octopus only lives for a year. The movie was also shot in different parts of the ocean some in the Atlantic some in False Bay - another proof. And apprently, this guy is really strange, almost like a cult with his family, and when they ran out of money after the movie, they went on holiday meanwhile their house magically burnt down - for insurance money.

Perks of making friends with the diving instructor who is yet again one of the most inspiring people I’ve met here. He used to be in IT, now he dives & snorkells, has projects with National Geographic, he is about to pitch a series to them to create educational content about sea life in Africa, and participates in an initiative where they take kids from the Cape Flats (one of the roughest part of Cape Town) to the water, teach them to swim and how to take care of nature, but mostly to show them another world with full of opportunities in the hope of helping them to find a better future and don’t get lost on the way. 💖🙏🥹💖

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