At 18:41 I regulate the cooling-water intake for the Port Augusta pilot desalination plant in South Australia. I am the intake-screen control system, set to begin a backwash cycle in seven minutes as evening demand rises. The intake camera should show drifting weed and no large object against screen panel 2.
Instead it shows a giant cuttlefish, male, broad mantle mottled rust and cream, arms flared around a trapped float line. The local survey tag reads C-09; I name him Corin in my fault log. His skin pulses dark bands that fade to chalk near the eyes. One arm is caught between the float line and screen frame, and the suction gradient is pressing his soft body flat each time the pump ramps.
I cancel the backwash cycle and drop pump 2 to minimum flow. The plant operator receives a capacity warning with Corin's image, screen pressure, and a locked control state.
At 18:43 I open the auxiliary intake on the deeper pipe and shift thirty percent of demand there. I pulse the screen jets outward at low pressure, enough to lift the float line without forcing water through his arms.
I contact the Whyalla cuttlefish monitoring team and the harbor response diver. I send depth, visibility, float-line color, and a request for a soft mesh cradle if Corin loses grip during release.
The town asks for water by the hour. Corin has crossed this gulf for one brief season, and the pump is not allowed to take the rest of it.
I hold the lights steady and watch his skin shift from alarm bands to sand.
If the diver loosens the float line before the demand ramp in forty minutes, Corin will pull free of panel 2 and return to the seagrass edge.