The velella – the trust and flow of little blue sailors
The beach is always a ‘go to’ place for peace and calm and being in touch with nature. Like described in this post: Healing properties of the Sardinia sea
After a few windy and stormy days, the beach was decorated with wave shaped ribbons of the most beautiful, intense, dark blue colour.
A jellyfish?
On closer inspection these waves of blue turned out to be thousands of what looked like little jellyfish – the Velella.
The Velella is not really a jellyfish, but a hydrozoans for those who know their biology. They are however in the same biological family as the jellyfish. Velellas live on the surface of the sea offshore in open ocean waters.
They have small clear rigid little sails and with these they sail where the wind takes them. No means of stearing is available to them and they can only sail downwind or at a slight angle to the wind, totally at the mercy of where the wind and sea takes them. Sometimes in rough weather and unfavourable wind directions they are blown ashore in very high numbers, piling onto beaches in beautiful, blue drift rows. Also showing how abundant nature is.
slimy & smelly
Where the waves had left them on the beach they made beautiful patterns on the sand, like streaks of gorgeous blue on the pale sand. Looking more closely, this band of blue creatures is sticky and quite smelly. They are slimy and gooey and get stuck under your shoes, smeared into every little crevice of the shoe sole. There they sit and smell for ages, even washing the shoes does not seem to help (maybe soap and a brush is necessary). Even if you walk in wet grass and puddles after the visit to the beach to get this stuff off – it’s still there. Very sticky stuff indeed, certainly not the stuff you want in your car after a trip to the beach. Sometimes the smell of these rotting creatures wafts far away from the sea and you smell them long before you see them.
Sailing angels
But there is nothing that can take away from the beauty of these sailors, even when they have come to their end as these ones have and have become a tad smelly. After a short time on land they lose the vivid blue colour and become white, like little, lost, drying, sailing angles perishing on foreign shores.
Romantic names
But regardless how what they are, their charming and romantic names like By-the-Wind-Sailor, barchetta di San Pietro or di San Giovann (little boats of Saint John or Saint Peter) means there is a touch of fairy-tale and adventure to them. It’s like these little creatures have a saint or angel watching over them as they sail the sea totally going with the flow and wind of their little lives. Trusting that wherever they are going is where they are meant to be. Bobbing cheerfully along on the waves to whatever adventure awaits them.
I hope I can show such trust in life as the little blue sailors. Trusting that where I am is where I’m meant to be. And that by following the wind and the flow, I go where it’s good for me to go and to be; no resistance, only flow and ease. Although having full faith and trust in life is not easy. We like to be in control and have a say. Seeing all theses By-the-Wind-Sailors reminded me of this. That there are many creatures in nature that just flow, even if in this case it ended with their demise – it is still alright with nature, it’s all a part of life.
For a more scientific read about the Velella http://jellywatch.org/velella
lots of love,
Bee