Velella Velella

While my family and I were checking out the surf conditions at Long Beach the other weekend, we came across dozens of these.

They’re velella velella ― a small animal about the length of my index finger. Related to the jelly fish, they are normally found hundreds of miles off shore. For some reason, they are sometimes washed ashore, which is what happened the other weekend on the beaches near Tofino. According to Tofino’s mayor, a marine biologist, it is a rare, but completely natural, event.

How cool that it happened the weekend we went to Tofino. (And how cool is it that Tofino’s mayor is a marine biologist?)