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Friday, March 14, 2025

Blue drift lines

  

Looking north along Salmon Creek Beach, with drift lines of By-the-wind Sailors (Velella velella).  There were so many Velella washed up tonight (14 March 20205), the beach looked blue as far as you could see. Here are a couple more views showing the high densities of Velella:


 
 
You can probably see that there were a variety sizes, anywhere from ~1 mm long to 70 mm long.  Below, a photo of small-medium Velella:

 
 
And, a couple of tiny (hard-to-see!) Velella. The first is at the end of Eric's fingertip for scale:

 
And the next one is so small its sail is barely visible:

 
If you've been to the beach lately, I'm guessing you're seeing Velella, too?

P.S.  For an introduction to Velella, see "Below the water line" on 18 March 2014.

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