Sailing in from afar

Danette Goulet

They washed up on the beaches by the thousands. Initially, their fat

jellyfish-like bodies were ringed in stunning cobalt blue, and their

sails stood proudly in the wind.

But by the weekend, the creatures lay shrunken and colorless, heaped

piles of shriveled, unrecognizable organisms.

The sail-backed creatures that washed ashore en masse from Corona del

Mar to Seal Beach, covering Huntington’s beaches in their entirety, are

called velella, or by-the-wind sailors.

“They covered a pretty large area, our entire beach from Beach

Boulevard to Seapoint,” said Kai Weisser, a city marine safety officer

who added that the greatest concentration was to the south.

The creatures are actually mobile hydroids. They usually travel on the

surface of the ocean with the help of buoyant float tissue and are

propelled by winds that catch their rigid triangular sail.

Velella ordinarily inhabit open ocean waters but are often cast on

beaches by the spring and summer winds.

“It’s not something we get here very often,” said Steve Siem, the

city’s lifeguard captain. “In fact, we used to get a lot more jellyfish.

We used to get the clear jellyfish with the long tentacles and stingers.”

Although the velella are not sea jellies -- which are commonly called

jellyfish -- and are not dangerous to people, it is suggested that anyone

who touches the beached creatures should keep their hands away from their

face and eyes.