This is a journal of our retirement move and life in Ucluelet on Vancouver Island's ruggedly beautiful west coast. The town's motto is "Enjoy life on the edge".

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Thursday 7 August 2014

Invasion Fleet

Late this afternoon, we went out for a walk on Wick Beach, and ran smack into an alien invasion! The attack of the Velella Velella, or By-the-Wind-Sailor was in full force, the beach littered with countless thousands of them, blown ashore and washed up into staggering tons of biomass for kilometers along the shoreline. We had seen evidence of their scouting expedition a few weeks ago, but now they had followed up with the entire armada.

 

These colourful little jellies float along the surface, propelled by the wind hitting their "sail", tentacles trailing in the water where they sting their prey, plankton. Their sting is relatively harmless to humans which is a good thing as kids were running back and forth through the piles and picking them up to throw at each other.

 

 

 

 

 

Luckily, the invasion fleet was ignored by most, and the surfers carried on undaunted!

 

On the way back to the car, I happened onto an amorphous blob about the size of a dinner plate. I imagine it is some sort of jelly, but it looked for all the world as if some large animal had barfed up a lung and perhaps a pancreas. Charming!

 

On a more genteel note, as we were leaving the house on our way to the beach, I spotted visitors in the yard. A doe and two fawns that suffered our intrusion as I went out to capture the moment. It's sights like this that we'll miss when we move back to the city.

As always, life on the edge is an adventure!

 

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