How can a sea have no shores? No beaches, no coastline, and not touching any land whatsoever. It can, when that sea is in the middle of an ocean.
The Sargasso Sea floats in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, north of the equator. The water there is the clearest in all the ocean, and the edge of this secret sea can in fact be seen from the air with a noted change in water colour to a deep blue.
The sea is created by a calmness. This expanse of water is free of ocean currents, and generally doesn’t get much wind or storms. It was named the Sargasso Sea by Portuguese sailors in the 15th century who were amazed by the massive collection of seaweed (of the Sargassum variety) that floats in the calm. It is pushed and corralled by the strong ocean currents that surround the area. (those circular currents are called a gyre, created by the Coriolis Effect)
Before modern ships, the Sargasso Sea could be hazardous to sailors. The calm ocean and weak winds could leave ships stranded on the open ocean, unable to move. This part of the world has been named the horse latitudes (between 30 and 35 degrees latitude, both north and south) after an odd sailing tradition that involved parading around the deck with a straw horse and tossing it overboard. Dumping the “dead horse” was to signify working off their debts at about that point in the journey.
Sadly, in modern times the same currents that collect the seaweed have also gathered a fair amount of pollution. There are large puddles of oil and plastic trash in the Sargasso Sea. Just the same as the more famous “plastic island” in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
- Source: Sargasso Sea – Wikipedia
- I first heard about this when watching the documentary Turtle: The Incredible Journey (which, fair warning, has no ninjas in it)
