NEW QUAY, Wales — The poet Dylan Thomas called this the “cliff-edge town at the far end of Wales,” but lately it has become better known as the place where the octopuses crawled out of the sea.

Brett Stones, who runs a local dolphin-watching business, spotted the creatures late last month, and shot a video of the unusual sight, which he posted online. The BBC saw it and quoted him saying it was like “an end of days scenario.”

“Yes I did say that,” Mr. Stones said, as we went out on a final dolphin-spotting cruise one recent day. “But you had to be there. And they seemed quite with it, not like they were dying.” Some were even spotted walking on their eight arms up the stone ramp to the lifeboat station.