Beach combing is all in the wind

Is it that time already?

I have fond memories of last April - hiking two miles down a steep headland to retrieve as many buoys as I could on a secluded beach before hiking the two miles back up in the rain.  Well, for me they were fond memories.  As for my boyfriend, he hung in there.

Okay, he may have said it was something like Tropic Thunder.  "Hang in there man- we need to get ALL of these floats back to my yard!"

Spring is a beachcomber's dream in the Pacific Northwest, because the winds that normally blow north to south (in summer) or south to north (in winter) go through a brief shifting period in the spring and fall.  This shift happens clockwise, so that means in spring months- mainly March through April, winds are often blowing directly into shore from the west.

This graph from 2014 shows that winds bounced from Southerly (Red: from the South) to Northerly (Blue) in March through April last year.  This time between strong Southerly winds to strong Northerly winds in the summer is called the 'transition period' when winds blow from the west. [Graphic: http://damp.coas.oregonstate.edu/windstress/2014.html]

Why is this so awesome for beachcombers? That means that a lot of debris (everything from boats, floats, and buoys) is going to be coming in after 11 months of circulating in the northern Pacific Ocean.  Since 2011, a lot of this debris has been attributed to the Tohoku earthquake and tsunamis, but the Pacific ocean also hosts a large debris field near Hawaii called the North Pacific gyre, where a lot of trash tends to accumulate.  This poses a large problem for northwest shores, so in spring you can also help clean this up by participating in beach cleanups in your community.

So, for every ton of garbage and debris, the beachcomber can hope to find one fascinating piece- maybe even that elusive glass float!

If you go out beach combing, consider taking a trash bag with you to pick up other debris, like styrofoam, plastics or wrappers that you find. Every large piece you pick up is being prevented from disintegrating on your local beach.  Some places, like Lincoln City, Oregon, will very kindly reward you for picking up the beach with monthly raffle drawings. So the way I see it, I'm doing the environment a favor by beach combing as much as possible!

Beachcombing and beach cleanups can be almost the same thing!  This volunteer cleans up crab buoys that washed ashore during the wreck of the F/V Chevelle in 2013 [Photo: Newslincolncounty.com, Oregon Surfrider]

So, if beachcombing is your thing, it's time to get out there!  Not only is the weather beautiful (mostly), but you might find some of those rare objects that we all search after.  To me, each unique object tells a story of people, the ocean, and beating the odds.

Below I've listed an activity that you can use to identify the best times to beach comb.

Good luck out there! I'd love to hear about your finds.

Citizen Science Opportunity!
See if you can predict or identify prime beach combing days using weather data.

If you want to track the winds yourself and plan your next beach combing trip, there are some excellent resources out there.  First, is the NH-10 (Newport Hydrographic Line - Station 10) which collects running data on wind speed and direction.  This data can be found at http://agate.coas.oregonstate.edu/data/nh10_wind.html . You can view Wind Speed (listed as meters per second- 1 m/s is roughly equal to 2.24 miles per hour), Wind Direction (listed from 0 to 360 degrees where wind from the North is 360 degrees and South is 180 degrees- think of a circle), and a combined value of Wind Speed + Direction.

Winds in the northern Pacific rotate clockwise throughout the year.  In summer, winds blow from the north in the Eastern Pacific, and in winter they blow from the south. (CWU.edu)

Using Wind Speed + Direction can be a confusing way to tell Easterly or Westerly winds, but using the two above criteria separately is an ideal way to tell if beach combing will be good or not in the near future.  First, the higher the wind speed, the more powerfully pushed ashore debris will be.  Secondly, the closer the number value is to 270 degrees- that is, from the east- the more debris that is likely going to be brought directly onshore.

The hardy NH-10 buoy is always bringing us the latest weather and ocean conditions, rain or shine. [Coas.oregonstate.edu]

You can also check Wind Speed and Direction from NOAA's oceanographic weather page: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/pqr/ if you like more visual interpretations.  Simply select your area of interest and click on 'Forecast Graphics'.  You can hover over the words 'Wind Speed and Direction' to see a map of current conditions, as well as some other items such as temperature, weather, and cloud cover.  Also very handy if you plan on going fishing in the near future. :)

By-The-Wind Sailors take over Eastern Pacific Shores

A strange site is greeting beachgoers, fishermen, and coastal residents along the Oregon and Washington coasts this summer- strandings of thousands of jelly-fish like creatures lining beaches and the nearshore waters.  What are these animals? While often mistaken for the notorious man-o-war jellyfish, they are actually a harmless colonial hydrozoan called Velella velella, or 'By-the-Wind Sailors'.

By-The-Wind Sailors in Brazil.  These guys are being spotted by fishermen off the OR and WA coasts! [Photo: thedancingrest.wordpress.com]

By-the-Wind Sailors stranded on a beach, a sight that has been reported several times in Oregon this season. [Photo: Zen Fly Fishing]

As their name suggests, these animals are relatively helpless subjects of the tides and winds, and as a result, large numbers of these animals strand on beaches if the conditions are just right.  At first, they appear to be just another invertebrate, but upon closer look, it's pretty apparent that there are a number of amazing traits of these animals!  Here are some basic facts about these awesome creatures.


1) Velella velella is NOT a jellyfish, although it is in the same Phylum, Cnidaria, or stinging animals.
Hydrozoans are some of the strangest animals in the seas-  they are related to jellyfish and corals, but aren't really similar to either.  These little animals can live independently or in colonies, like Velella, and are generally predators.  They use specialized stinging cells to immobilize and then consume prey- fortunately these stinging cells are too small to injure us.  Many people may mistake the harmless Velella for the dangerous (and infamous) Portuguese Man-o-War, whose adults are much bigger.   Velella adults are typically less than 2-inches across.

An array of bizarre hydrozoans, as drawn by Ernst Haeckel (1904)

2) Velella velella aren't just one animal- they are a colony of animals, each of which is adapted to do a specific 'job'.
Unlike a jelly, lots of individual immature Sailors come together to form one cohesive unit, which looks like one animal.  This is similar to other sea creatures, such as corals or sea pens, which are my personal favorite colonial invertebrate (in case you were wondering what to get me for Christmas!)  Individuals on a Sailor are specialized for functions such as structure (forming the sail, etc.), feeding, stinging (defense), or reproduction.

Typically adult colony of Velella, representing a cooperative network of individuals forming one unit.

3)  Velella velella must believe in cooties.  
Colonies of Velella are segregated by sex- some colonies are only male, and some of them are only female.  In addition, this animal reproduces by asexual budding- that is, each animal essentially creates thousands of clones of itself which are then released into the water column as tiny polyps, which then later transform into the adult stage called the Medusa.

Graphic of an adult cnidarian producing a budding polyp or clone. [Darwinlearning.com]

4) There is such thing as a right-handed and left-handed Velella. 
Velella velella means 'little sail' in Latin.  And that sail is essentially what their life cycle is all about.  Although little is really known about how this organism spends its life, it is known that the species appears to be made up of colonies that have their sail rotated clockwise, while the other section of the population consists of sails rotated counter-clockwise.  For that reason, many of the animals that art found in one stranding event will have sails rotated in a similar direction, since the wind tends to carry them one way.  Other individuals with a different 'handedness' will typically be carried in the opposite direction- that is, farther out to sea.

Top view of a Velella with a counter-clockwise rotated sail. Other individuals would have the sail rotated similarly to the right. [Illustration: Lander University]

5) While Velella does have stinging cells, they are too small to harm humans.
Don't panic if you see these guys in the water or on the beach!  They cannot sting you. While other cnidarians are deadly to humans (such as the Portuguese Man-O-War), smaller hydrozoans like Velella are harmless to humans.  These guys drift at the surface of the water, and capture tiny zooplankton floating there.  They aren't really well-adapted to eat (or sting) something much bigger than a grain of sand.

A Portuguese Man-O-War sits on a beach.  Unlike Velella, this is a pretty deadly and dangerous animal to humans.

With that, I hope you have learned a few things about these animals, and you know what to look for when you are are out on the beaches this summer!  The ocean really is an amazing place if we take time to have a closer look.

Did you see these guys on the beach? Email me and let me know!
Here are some photos of the recent stranding at Beverly Beach, near Newport OR (Although I was a day or two late, when the animals were pretty well dried up):