Two stunned divers have spoken about the 'crazy' moment the world's largest species of octopus hugged them before taking a selfie.

Chris Mullen, 35, from Carlisle, Cumbria, was diving with pal John Roney, 31, off the coast of his hometown of Vancouver Island, Canada, when they encountered a Giant Pacific octopus.

The pair were towards the end of their hour-long dive on Monday, August 4, when the curious cephalopod came out from underneath a rock before stretching out its arms to give the divers a hug.

The ocean-dwelling animal, which is the largest octopus species on earth, then took hold of pal John's camera to become a videographer itself.

Stunned Chris, who has been diving since 2015, said: "We originally saw it on our way out, we passed it at the beginning of the dive, and took a couple of pictures when it was underneath a rock."

"20 or 30 minutes later, we passed back on the way home and it reached out for John's camera."

"It stretches quite far from where it was to grab hold of the camera, it really went out of its way to get hold of John and his camera."

"It had his camera for about five minutes. "

"I'd already started to swim away, as I like to give them space."

"But as I tried to leave, it dropped the camera and started moving towards where I was going to."

"It was effectively following me."

"It briefly stopped to interact with another octopus, and then saw me up higher filming it, and it made a beeline right for me and jumped one me next."

"It was wild, it was crazy what was going on."

Chris said temperatures off the coast of western Canada are around 10 degrees Celsius.

The divers, wearing dry suits, carry about 70lbs worth (30 kg) of gear as they film the ocean below.

Video of the encounter has racked up over 20,000 views on Chris's Instagram page.

Fellow diver John said: "The moments where you see these animals, where they're choosing to have this interaction and controlling the interaction, willingly participating in it, it really displays in the intelligence of these animals."

"Because the camera was still rolling it gave us this really unique look at the underside of their suckers."

"As the octopus was holding it, we were joking the octopus was a videographer itself."

"Chris has got same great photos of it actually holding the camera and aiming it towards the wall."

"I think moments like that really capture people's curiosity. It shows them a world they might not get to see otherwise."