It’s a shame that these beautiful and fascinating animals are actually dead or dying as they’ve been blown ashore from out in the ocean, little shipwrecks, unable to propel themselves back into the water. They are commonly known as By-The-Wind-Sailors, Blue Jellyfish, Purple Sail and Sea Rafts. They are actually Velella Velella a free-floating hydozoan and a relative of the Portugese Man o' war that lives on the surface of the open ocean. There is some debate among the scientific community if the Velella Velella is actually a hydroid colony or an individual animal. I’ve found articles on both. Basically, the By-the-wind Sailor is an organism comprised of many individual small creatures that work together to form an animal that appears to be a distinct individual. Amazing! Their small ‘plastic like’ sail catches the wind and moves them over the surface of the ocean where they catch their prey of fish, invertebrate eggs and small zooplankton. They sting their prey with their small tentacles that hang down in the water. They spend their entire lives on the surface except the reproductive medusa which dive and produce eggs and sperm and the resulting young embryos that then rise back to the surface. Velella Velella usually live miles offshore in open ocean waters. However, because they only sail downwind or at a slight angle to the wind, they are often blown ashore as they have no way to propel themselves and are at the mercy of the wind. The angle of their sails varies depending on where on the globe they live. Here on the west coast their sail is at a 45 degree angle which helps them stay away from land, however recent weather conditions has unfortunately blown millions of them onto shore. I took photos over two days and oddly on the second day the Velella Velella were covered with ladybugs. I asked a park ranger why and he didn’t know. I’m guessing there was something on them the ladybugs were eating, but sadly the lady bugs were also getting killed by the waves. All in all a very strange phenomena. To purchase photos, prints or other items please contact me at photobyvivian@gmail.com