Ankle-Deep in Velella

We hiked for 4 days along the beaches in Olympic National Park (between Sandy Point and the Norwegian Memorial), and for much of the time we were wading ankle-deep through Velella that had washed up on the shore. There was no way to count that many, but it had to be in the millions. They were all dead, as they had washed up with the tide. Each day brought new deposits of Velella, and we could see the older deposits as they turned white while the new ones were bright blue (and smelled). They made the footing very treacherous, as those beaches are already covered in irregular rocks, so covering them with a layer of slippery Velella did not help!