Flora the housekeeper visited today. My mom was the one who first enlisted her help. So, she has been cleaning the house for many years. Her coming is always a big deal and today was no different. We helped prepare, but once she was in the rhythm of her job, we were released from further duty. They didn’t have to tell us twice. In a flash we were out the door. Having come all this way to visit the Left Coast, it would have been a shame not to actually see the ocean. We headed to Point Lobos, the state park just south of Carmel.

We have visited this place many times before. It is one of our favorites. Like in the past, we saw sea otters, seals, seal pups and birds, hosts of birds. In the days to come, I will be regaling you with many of the pictures that we took there. They were out of parking spots when we arrived, forcing us to park on the shoulder of the Pacific Coast Highway, Highway 1. We walked to the coast from there. Reaching the ocean, we were greeted by an unusual sight. 

A huge batch of By-the-Wind Sailors, a cousin of the dangerous Portuguese man o’ war, had washed up on shore. Their scientific name is Velella, but By-the Wind works for me. Not a jellyfish, but related, they are actually a colony of polyps that coexist and work together. These polyps are carnivorous and mainly feed on plankton. For each individual, their polyps are either all male or female. The most distinguishing feature of these animals is their sail that can catch the wind, propelling them across the surface of the water or in this case on to shore, where we found them dying by the thousands. We did not go in the water.