The Wide Sargasso Sea

 

There are many stories of ships stuck in the Sargasso Sea.

Located in the Atlantic, the Sargasso Sea has long been the stuff of legends. Columbus and his crew were becalmed in the Sargasso Sea in 1492 for three days. His may have been one of the first written accounts of Sargassum as he described the seaweed floating around his ships in the still sea.

What makes the Sargasso Sea so still?  Bound by open water on all sides, the Sargasso Sea lies within the Northern Atlantic Subtropical Gyre. Ships passing into the Sargasso Sea are sometimes becalmed by its doldrums. The mats of Sargassum are rumored to have entangled the becalmed vessels.

You may have heard of this part of the Atlantic where ships disappear.  The Bermuda Triangle lies within the Sargasso Sea.  Stories about the Sargasso Sea abound, from Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to one of my favorite novels, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. In her prequel to Jane Eyre, Rhys constructs a novel in which the sea acts as a metaphor for the life of Antoinette, who is, in several ways, becalmed both before and after her marriage to Mr. Rochester.