Sea pork looks as gross as it sounds, but many people excitedly brought it to the Center thinking it was ambergris, which is almost as bad. Ambergris is basically whale vomit. It's a waxy substance produced in the hindgut of sperm whales that washes ashore sometimes after it's regurgitated. It's used as a fixative in more expensive perfumes because it causes it to retain its scent for a much longer time. People would bring in this stinky smelling wad of something, which always turned out to be sea pork.
Sea pork is a colonial tunicate, a marine animal that is globular in shape.
When they make a colony, a lot of them, it can be larger size. Charlotte Lloyd shows examples of some of marine life she's gathered from combing the beach. Not every beachcomber is interested in getting rich, of course. Some just enjoy the oddities. Billie Brown is fascinated by her rare find of mermaids' purses, or skate egg casings, on the Gulf Coast.