Almost throughout the whole transit southward, at least when the winds were calm, we encountered fields of small, purple Velella velellas. Of course, we didn't know what they were at the time. It took a picture texted to my daughter, Lisa, for us to learn that. Mabrouka's pace through the water was giving us only a constantly shifting perspective on them, so I eventually scooped one out of the water with the plastic cover from my chart plotter and we were able to consolidate their fleeting passage into a fifteen minute, get acquainted session. The little purple smudges were transformed into a translucent, rubbery, blue lily pad about two or three inches across with a silvery "sail" that ran somewhat diagonally across the top. Flipping them over revealed a slit of an opening on the underside fringed with small, blue tentacles all around.

That's when we decided that their original discoverers were too embarrassed to tag them with the name that TRULY came to mind. Wikipedia says they're called by various common names: sea raft, by-the-wind sailor, purple sail, or little sail. I don't know whether Velella velella translates to any of these, but we decided that the prudish old biologists really meant to name them Vagina vaginas. Sorry, that's what they looked like to four old sailors cooped up in a 50 foot sailboat 70 miles at sea.