…Researched and contributed by Solomon Thomas.
Ziggy Austin, a 40-year-old father, found a nearly 7ft octopus off the coast of Hopes Nose near Torquay in Devon while fishing with his daughter Lauren.
The creature was dead, with its bulbous head bitten off by a seal.
Ziggy, who runs Rock Solid Coasteering, saved the rest of the octopus and has been slowly eating it, after marinating it in teriyaki sauce and serving it with stir-fried vegetables.
He posted a video on YouTube of himself dissecting the creature, showing its features such as its beak, and its tentacles with suckers.
Ziggy is amazed by the size of the creature, which he initially mistook for an abandoned fishing net.
He is a man of the sea, but he has never seen anything like it.
According to him, the octopus was larger than his daughter.
He had to use the end of his fishing rod to tangle it around the octopus to pull it out of the water.
When they finally got the creature onto a rock, Ziggy realised a seal had bitten its head clean off the top.
Ziggy also won the Torquay edition of ‘Come Dine with Me’ in 2014, and he already tested his skills at cooking the octopus.
On the advice of one gentleman, he simmered it for 45 minutes and then marinated it in teriyaki sauce. Ziggy does not want to waste such an amazing creature, and he has given away a leg or two to his friends who have been messaging him.
He claims that he could never kill such a creature himself.