User talk:Conaughy/archive 2

The ocean currents of the North Atlantic Gyre

A major cold ocean current, the Labrador Current, on the west side of the North Atlantic Ocean flows southward along the east coast of North America. It meets the warm Gulf Stream current from Cape Hatteras and Cape Fear, a couple hundred miles south of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. This merging of cool and warm currents move easterly to the southern portions of the Celtic Sea of which the Irish Sea's current moves and adjoining the north-western Bay of Biscay. The English Channel current cuts between these two seas of west Europe's continental shelf to meet the warm eastern current just north of the Sargasso Sea. The merging currents flow south along Portugal's Iberian Peninsula coast towards the North Equatorial Current which moves east, south of the Sargasso Sea, to the southern Caribbean and adjoining northern South America continental shelf. The earliest seafaring people used these currents to navigate to and from the ocean's fisheries. Only speculation can say how long ago and how far into the North Atlantic fishermen travelled. Amerigo Vespucci found the Chesapeake Bay on his trip to the New World in 1497 while following the warm Gulf Stream current north and passing into the cooler current that moves down to the Outer Banks coastal region. John Cabot had discovered the American coastline as far south as the Chesapeake Bay in 1498. He sailed down exploring the coastline of New England by this mid-Atlantic's cooler current to the Chesapeake Bay. Only legends and Sagas tell of Vikings and Basque fishermen visit to the Newfoundland fisheries. Italian navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, first sighted the coast of South America during the voyage of discovery for Spain in 1499. He sailed across by the Equatorial Current as Columbus had done in 1492.