SCIENCE LAB SCHEME : CALIFORNIA VISITORS

WHEN the wind blows just right, the ' Sailors ' hit the beaches by the thousands. They are iridescent, bright blue and jellylike, with stinging tentacles that dangle from their flat, oval-shaped bodies.

Just three to four inches long, these creatures use a short, clear flap of skin to catch gusts of wind, propelling them through the ocean.

That flap, or sail, is how they got their nickname, '' By-the-Wind Sailors,'' but it is less helpful when the creatures, seven to 10 centimeters long, are stranded en masse on California beaches, as they have been recently.

The marine carnivores are not quite jellyfish but are closely related. They appear every spring and have been doing so for '' millions of years, '' said Steven Haddock, a marine biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

But every few years [ including this one ], when especially strong winds blow in the right direction, millions can wash ashore in droves, '' spanning from Baja California to Alaska,'' he said.

This year, they've been spotted along the coasts of Washington and Oregon, although a majority of sightings so far has been in California.

Despite the vella's stingers, those who stumble upon them have no need to worry, Mr. Haddock said.  They are not likely to sting a human who picks them up by their sails.

Usually, they live near the ocean surface, where they can bunch together by the thousands, Mr. Haddock said that at times, they accumulated in such a way that if you were on a boat and saw a colony, it would appear as if you could step out and walk across them.

!WOW! thanks Sonia A. Rao.