Was it a jellyfish or something else!!

[SteveB_Sigma33]

Just come back from a trip between Dingle and Horta in the Azores. Whilst on the way down we cam across what we termed sea going cumquats! Basically they look like little white flowers/cumquats. Passed thousands of them floating on the surface until we were about 300 - 400 miles from the Azores. Anyone know what these wee beasties are?!?!

 

[Sui Generis]

Possibly "By the Wind Sailors", or Velella Velella to give them their Latin title

 

[Evadne]

Lots of beasties that can be pidgeonholed under the names jellyfish, sea gooseberries, sea combs, etc. . The latter are generally called Tenophores by scientists.

Off SW Ireland this year we saw lots of things that looked like flowers, and turned out to be small groups of Gooseneck barnacles. It looked like they were attached to polystyrene packing "chipples", forming a rosette around each chipple, and there must have been thousands and thousands of them.

Other beasties you see near the surface in the deep ocean: Salps, which are very simple jellies of various forms. One you see a lot of is a simple egg shaped whitiesh jelly (describes most of them, actually,) that forms colonies in the form of strands or ribbons. Others swim singly with long whips or rows of short bristles. Pterapods, which are sea snails that swim with "wings" growing out of their foot. Ocean Striders, a pond skater that got lost.

Did you catch any flying fish?

 

[lyall]

We saw the very same things on our trip back to the UK from the Azores in June this year as part of the ARC Europe. Another boat in the fleet managed to catch some and decided they were barnacles of some description attached to what they think are the "pellets" they put in the ocean to clean up after an oil-spill. Sounds good to me!

 

[Kilter]

Got any pictures perchance?

Mid Atlantic one time, totally becalmed, boat upright, mirror reflection, etc surrounded as far as we could see by portugese man o war of all sizes from tiny to "blimey didn't know they grew that big"! Quite surreal!

 

[wooslehunter]

See Velella Velella here.

I saw thousand of the the things on Gozo. We were diving & the entry point was covered with what looked like a load of packing material someone had dumped. Actually turned out to be these things - very strange.

 

[dulcibella]

Certainly sounds like Velella - I've sailed for 2 whole days through billions of these chaps midway between Cape Finisterre and the Azores.