Atlantic & Related • Caribbean Islands

The Atlantic ocean holds the places that are not in the Caribbean, but connect to it. They are the gates and the neighbours: the ports and airports that carry people in, the islands along the routes, and the great ocean current that ties them all to the Caribbean Sea.

The Gulf Stream

One current explains the whole group. The Gulf Stream is a warm river of seawater, and it is born in the Caribbean. Trade winds push Atlantic water west onto the coast of South America, where it turns north into the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. The water leaves through the Straits of Florida, between the Florida Keys and Cuba, and runs north up the coast of the United States. Off the Carolinas it bends east and crosses the ocean to Europe, then turns south past Portugal and West Africa, and the trade winds carry it back to the Caribbean. It is a loop, and the Caribbean is its warm heart.

That loop has carried ships for five hundred years. The Spanish treasure fleet rode it home, sailing out of the Caribbean through the Straits of Florida, up the American coast, then east to Spain, the same route the current still runs. The galleons that loaded silver at Cartagena and Portobelo, and pearls at Margarita, all left the sea by this one northern door.

The main sea gate to the Caribbean

Miami is the main sea gate to the Caribbean. Its port is called the Cruise Capital of the World, the busiest cruise port anywhere, and most roundtrip Caribbean cruises begin there. Beside it sits Fort Lauderdale, whose Port Everglades is nearly as busy, the second great cruise door in the same stretch of Florida coast. From these two ports the ships sail to the Bahamas, to Mexico, Honduras, and Belize in the west, and to Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Sint Maarten in the east.

The Florida Keys are the nearest land to the sea itself. The chain reaches southwest from Miami toward Cuba, and it sits right on the Straits of Florida, the channel where the Gulf Stream pours out of the Caribbean. It is the closest the United States comes to the sea.

Caribbean gates by air

Miami is the main air gate as well as the main sea gate. Its airport flies more routes to the Caribbean and Latin America than any other airport in the United States. New York is the second great air gate, through John F. Kennedy airport, the busiest international airport in the country, with direct flights to Antigua, Aruba, Barbados, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and most of the islands. Toronto is the Canadian gate, the largest airport in Canada, and Canadians fill Caribbean flights through the cold northern winters. From Europe the main doors are London, Paris, and Madrid, which carry travellers across the Atlantic to the same islands.

Bermuda, the neighbour in the ocean

Bermuda is not in the Caribbean. It lies far out in the Atlantic, about 1,000 km off the coast of the United States, near the still centre of the Gulf Stream loop. It belongs in this group because it is the nearest island neighbour and a stop on the sailing routes, tied to the Caribbean by the same ocean and the same warm current, though it sits well to the north.

Europe on the other side

The current does not stop at Europe. As the North Atlantic Current it reaches the coasts of Ireland and Britain and warms them, which is why they are milder than their northern latitude should allow. Then it turns south. It runs down the Iberian side, past the coast of Portugal from north to south, and past the Azores and Madeira, the Portuguese islands set in the open Atlantic, then on past the Canary Islands along the African coast. Near the Cape Verde Islands it turns west and becomes the current that carries it back across the ocean to the Caribbean. The loop is closed.

Sailing ships rode this same ring. Vessels leaving Europe for the Caribbean stopped at Madeira or the Canary Islands to load food and water, then ran south to catch the trade winds and turned west for the islands. The Azores and Madeira were the last European ground before the open crossing, and they sit on the loop the same way Bermuda does on the far side.