Little Sails on the Beach

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Ramona at Pleasures at the page Here. Thank you, Ramona, for hosting this week. Be sure to stop by and see what poetry magic she has for us this week.

It isn’t that often that I take a walk and see a complete mystery, something that I have never seen before, like I did yesterday. I’m still staying with my son and his family in Pacifica, CA and walking on the beach I saw thousands of small white objects littering the sand that were not there the day before:

I picked one up and it felt dry and weightless as a potato chip. It was probably salty too, given its location.

Here are two specimens:

What are they?

Closer to the water I found this. It was roughly the same shape but plump, not dried out like the above two.

Velella Valella, a genus of the class Hydrozoa

These little sea creatures are related to the Portuguese Man-of War. They are called “sea rafts” “by-the -wind-sailor”, “purple sail, ” or “little sail.” Their more scientific name is Velella Velella, the genus and species. The class is Hydrozoa. If you want to learn more, the link will take you to Wikipedia.

The bottom part of this creature, the sailboat part, is often blue, but the one I found was colorless, translucent. They have a small stiff sail at a right angle that catches the wind and moves them across the water like sailboats. According to wikipedia, “Under certain wind conditions that may be stranded by the thousand on beaches.”

Today was my lucky day to learn about sea rafts!

A SURPRISE ON MY BEACH WALK

So today without my knowin'
I stumbled on a Hydrozoan!

A creature with a sailor's mind,
a ready sail, but blowing blind!

With thousands stranded on the shore
if the wind continues, many more.

Nature hides behind a door
with countless mysteries in store,

and so today without my knowin',
I stumbled on a hydrozoan. 


© Janice Scully 2025

One of the fun things I’ve discovered on my walks is a little library. It sits on a pole by the walking trail. I have donated some books and discovered books I would never have read before. You never know what you will find. Today I found Hop on Pop for my grandson.

I found the book I’m reading now, “Isaac’s Storm” by Erik Larson. I’ve read his “Devil in the White City” which I loved and this one about the deadliest hurricane in history, 1900, in Galveston TX, when the National Weather Service was in it’s infancy. I look forward to more of Larson’s suspenseful writing. I bought “Rough Sleepers” by Tracy Kidder about a doctor helping to house and treat the homeless in Boston over the last thirty or more years. I donated it to the little library and hope someone else likes it as much as I did.

Have a great week. Thank you, Ramona, for hosting!