Blue Jelly Fish with a Sail - Newport Oregon - Velella Jelly Fish

Anyone up for Jelly Fishing?

These little jelly fish have a sail that they use to travel.  They are called Velella Jelly Fish.  I had never seen one before, so I snapped a photo and did some googling.  No one else I ran into on the beach  knew what these were called.

These little jelly fishes are so obscure that they are NOT listed on Wikipedia.  But they are ever so cute and very well designed.  They go a little crazy during the "dating season," and sometimes bunches of them end up on the beach.  That's what I saw, hundreds of these little creatures covering the beach in Newport, Oregon.  Their little sails pointing toward the sky.

How did I identify this Pacific Ocean sea creature?  When my effort to identify it on Wikipedia failed, I went to some very simple googlings … like, "blue jelly fish with a sail on the oregon coast." But that failed as well.

I was pretty sure that it was a jelly fish, although the blue color made me think that it was a Portuguese Man of War.  Then I got lucky.

A friend recommended that I check a local news source at http://www.newslincolncounty.com and there I identified my jelly fish.  These jelly fish are called Velella Jelly Fish or Sail Jelly Fish.  

Mike McKenzie © 2014

California is for Bullies

California Sea Lions, that is!  Har har ... You could hear this group of goofballs from a long ways off ... barking at each other ... laying in the sun on an unusually sunny Oregon Coast day.

Newport, Oregon.  Saw lots of whales spouting off Depoe Bay.  Like a dozen of them in the span of a half of an hour.  You'd see the whale sprays out a couple of hundred yards from shore, then the fins surfacing.  Really awesome.  Lots of people parked and watching. 

I don't enjoy traveling by car, but I'll put up with the sore neck if someone else drives and there's cool stuff to see when we get there.  Will there be animals?  Will those animals be big and cute?  Oh, goodie!

But the sea lions (yes, the CALIFORNIA sea lions) were being mean and not letting a yearling get up on the dock to the lay in the sun.  So rude.  So mean.  Like Kassem G when he does those "Going Deep" things, just awful and rude.

Jimmyjumpnjive September 2012