Look deeply into Velella for the secrets of the wind
The wind and I have not been friends. For thirteen years of sea otter tracking it pushed at me from the cold northwest, shaking my spotting scope, churning up the seas, awakening sleeping otters, chilling me to my bones and testing my endurance for pushing back. I could find little room in my heart to love the wind.
Wind blown otter tracker, Mary Ramirez at San Nicolas Island
Harry's ears are my wind gauge: tracking otters at Point Pinos
It is a long road back to friendship---perhaps those of you who have not had to bear the full force day after day cannot understand. I've felt a bit like an abused partner, blown and beaten then soothed with the gentle apology in a calm whisper as the gusts lie down at dusk. That cycle of one-sided anger and blame has brewed in me for over a decade, churning into its own vortex of hatred for one of Earth's great forces, The winds cares not and keeps on blowing.
Wind blown breakers at Morro Strand
A torrent of wind blown fog cloaks Morro Rock
For those of us who cherish the staggering biodiversity of the California coastal waters, we owe the wind our gratitude. It is the force of the prevailing northwest wind, racing parallel to our coast, that drives the cycling of deep and surface waters in a process know as upwelling. The force of the wind mines the depths to replentish nutrients and ultimately nurtures the sea otter, the kelp, the lowly anemone and the salmon on your dinner table. On my most desperate days in 30 knot winds on an exposed sea bluff, I would call out in the face of it, "You drive the upwelling!" and feel comforted.
Californians have had a mass visitation by ambassadors of the wind on their beaches this month. Velella velella, or By-the-wind-sailors, are colonial cnidarians (relatives of jellies, corals and anemones) that live entirely at the mercy of winds and currents. These sea-colored jewels, float at the margin of sea and sky with stinging tentacles dangling below waiting to ensnare tiny prey and a diminutive sail aloft to catch the wind, all anchored at the surface with a jellied cobalt raft.
The final evidence of passive mobility in skidmarks in the sand
The chitonous sails may be either right or left "handed" (the sail angled towards the right or left of the center axis) and the angle of the sail determines the direction each Velella travels relative to the wind. In a theoretical mass of both right and left oriented Velella at the center of the ocean, the wind would sort them in opposite directions, to beaches on opposite sides of the Pacific. You can read an detailed study of their aerodynamics here. A change in the prevailing wind can turn that sail against them and cause these denizens of the open ocean to be blown ashore in drifts by the millions---at first glittering blue and aqua drying to delicate wisps of clear tissue over time. The tentacles are transformed from hanging, deadly (to the littlest ocean dwellers) chandeliers to gelatinous shrouds once stranded.
Don't forget to look closely. You will be lost it the beauty.
Snowy plover treads lightly amonst Velella drift
At one with the seafoam
The nudibranch Glaucus feeding on Velella from below.
Photo from ferrebeekeeper.files.wordpress.com
At sea the Velella are prey to nudibranchs, the floating purple snail Janthina and another odd open ocean traveler with a double Latin name, the Mola mola. This blog on the natural history of Bodega Bay has an account of Mola feeding on Velella. As I see them strewn across the sand from Sunset Beach up towards Rio Del Mar at the heart of Monterey Bay, I wish for some predator to find them a banquet.
Harry, always game to try anything dead, takes a taste and does not find them delicious. I wonder if his tongue took a bit of a hit from the tiny nematocysts.
I have not faced off against the wind in an adversarial way since July of 2014. I have felt the resentment waning, even just a few weeks later as I walked the blustery beach of Assateague Island---as Harry and I chased the foam tumbleweeds rolled across the sand by the southwesterly, I felt my heart softening. On a visit to Seattle I was treated to a sail on Puget Sound and felt gratitude for the wind's captured energy propelling us forward. The next day that I find the sea frothy with whitecaps and the gulls reeling on invisible currents, I think I shall find a kite and embrace the wind.
Wind animated seafoam on Assateague Island
Full sail on Puget Sound
The final word on wind from John Denver:
"So welcome the wind and the wisdom she offers. Follow her summons when she calls again. In your heart and your spirit, let the breezes surround you. Lift up your voice then and sing with the wind...."
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