Recently whilst sailing one evening to Isla Christina in Spain from Vila Real St Antonio in Portugal, a distance of only about four miles, we saw a distress flare on the horizon. Initially we had thought that it was a bright deck light from a fishing vessel, we motored towards it to investigate, as we drew closer we saw a second and then a third flare, the third one was being waved energetically from side to side which convinced us that it was a distress flare.

Ten minutes later, we came alongside a fishing boat whose Spanish crew explained that they were unable to start their engine. We took them in tow and towed them to Isla Christina, where they presented us with an enormous and very alive Octopus.

There was much excitement on board tinged with a fair amount of fear, however we got it into a bucket where we left it for the night and went out to a restaurant where we discussed as to how we should prepare and cook it. This involved several short messages and an expensive telephone conversation to a friend in England. I suggested that we gave it a sound beating on a stone at the end of the pontoon in order to make its meat tenderer; however, I was overruled by four to one. The following morning three of my crew Linda, Sally and Margaret chopped its eight legs off, skinned them and prepared them for cooking that night. Marcus the fourth member of my crew and I attended to more important matters such as sharpening knives, making a photographic record of the event, bringing our boat's log book up to date and finally making coffee for the girls.

The evening before over dinner some of the crew named him Dexter (derived from ambidextrous) which was a big mistake as there was now a certain fondness for him and therefore a reluctance to eat him. My view was that as we have killed the poor thing the least we could do is eat him (or her) which ever it is, I suppose that if it were a she it would be an Octopussy as opposed to an Octopus. Either way he or she was now in a plastic box in the fridge and we were all anticipating a good meal that evening. Sally who cooks professionally cut him into rings and owing to the lack of flower and eggs on board cooked him as a stir-fry with vegetables and he was delicious!