A Detritus of Jellyfish

Blue jellyfish, or Velella velella, often wash up on the beach in the spring, but I have never seen them here in such profusion. When I first approached, I thought they were foam left at the water line as the tide receded. Each individual is quite beautiful, about the size of a silver dollar, with a delicate translucent vertical blue sail. There are thousands, maybe millions, stranded here along the shore, victims of the wind.

A group of jellyfish is called a smack, a smuck, a bloom, a brood, a smuth or a fluther...


Hipstamatic: Lowy lens; Estrada 83 film