The Gulf Stream

Stuart, FL
27 11.93 N 80 15.67 W

The Gulf Stream is a powerful influence on our lives as cruisers. It's about time that I wrote a blog about it.

Between the Carolinas and the keys, The Gulf Stream is a constant part of our cruising lives. We see it almost every day. How? We see it because it is nearly always covered by a line of clouds. Those clouds remind us that it's there and give a visual indication of how far away it is.

In Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana said, "This morning the temperature and peculiar appearance of the water the quantities of gulf weed floating about and a bank of clouds lying directly before us showed that we were on the border of the Gulf Stream. "

In Miami, in the keys and in the Bahamas, The Gulf Stream is the dominant force affecting our weather. You see, the Bahamas are sandwiched between the eastern and western branches of The Gulf Stream. Many people don't know that there's an eastern branch called The Achilles Current. You can see it in the thermograph below.

The raw statistics of The Gulf Stream are amazing. It transports water at a rate of 30 million cubic meters per second near Miami, and 150 million near Newfoundland. Compare that to 0.6 million cubic meters per second for the combined flow of all rivers that flow into the Atlantic. It also transports 1.4 petawatts of heat, equivalent to 100 times the world energy consumption. Without The Gulf Stream Europe might have a climate like Siberia.

Sailing in The Gulf Stream is magic. Libby and I are enchanted by the impossibly deep deep sparkling blue color of the water. I've tried and tried (unsuccessfully) to photograph that color. We also love watching the flying fish flying fish fly. We are intrigued by the sea turtles and the Portuguese Man O' War. Those are stinging jellyfish that are the turtle's lunch. They are beautiful to see and mysterious in their life cycle. Our first time across The Gulf Stream, Libby and I didn't know what they were. We called them "baggy things."