The Sargasso Sea is located right in middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and its borders are all natural
- On average, it’s about 1,430 miles long from east to the west and 680 miles from north to south. The water in it is bright blue.
- The weather is surprisingly stable too, so the winds are really calm and weak.
- Sargassum seaweed can only be found in this very spot on the Earth, and it grows and floats in a thick mat on the surface.
- Christopher Columbus himself crossed it in 1492. He actually thought he’d reached some land as he got into it because the seaweed was so dense.
- The first official record of a lost ship was made in the 1840 when the London Times reported the disappearance of the Rosalie.
- It looked as if people onboard had either abandoned ship or simply vanished into the thin air.
- In 1881, the American schooner Ellen Austin encountered another ship traveling through the area with no passengers whatsoever.
- Some marine experts believe it has something to do with seaweed and the huge whirlpool that it’s floating in.
- The big whirlpools are so strong that they can catch a ship and drag it inside them. The smaller ones travel as mini cyclones in the air, disturbing the water below them.
- This stuff is a unique biological phenomenon. It doesn’t get into sea with water currents from elsewhere, but is actually native specifically to the Sargasso Sea.
- Unfortunately, not only turtles and fish travel with currents right into the Sargasso Sea. The moving waters also carry garbage with them, including plastics that aren’t biodegradable.
- It was first found in 1972 and is only getting bigger with time. At present, it’s hundreds of miles in the size!
