ship:  the creatures had hard backs that fit together like feathers, like scales, that were water tight.  they shared a telepathy, or sympathy that allowed them to move, bind, and recombine with coordination and speed unthinkable for other species.  over a hundred would link arms and legs, tuck up their heads, their beetle backs hard and smooth against the sea, and form a bowl, the hull, the shape of the ship.  their skins they shed from month to month, and these they would use as sails.  they were bluish grey and translucent in the sun.  towers of the creatures, gripping and stacked in a spiral kind of way suggested by their bodies, difficult to describe, made up the masts, with scouts scurrying up and down, looking for land lashing things together with their tongues (which were thick with a kind of paste.   ship and sailors, steerage, hulls, and cargo, the living vessels drifting, a silvery mass on water, soft like lavender.

links: beetle