Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
The Sargasso Sea is the only sea on Earth with no shores—surrounded not by land, but by rotating ocean currents in the middle of the Atlantic.
Instead of beaches, it’s coated in foul-smelling Sargassum—so thick sailors once feared being trapped and dragged to the ocean floor.
The Sargasso is home to the North Atlantic Garbage Patch—a swirling manmade island of trash, with up to 200,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre.
Four powerful ocean currents—North Atlantic, Canary, Equatorial, and Antilles—lock the sea in a spinning gyre, creating what Jules Verne called a “lake in the open Atlantic.”
Endangered European and American eels travel thousands of kilometres to breed here—then die, making it a sacred spawning zone.
Sailors in 1492 feared this calm, eerie sea would trap them forever—its windless dead zones helped inspire Bermuda Triangle myths.
A December study revealed the Sargasso is now warmer, saltier, and more acidic than ever—signalling possible collapse of vital marine systems.
The sea supports the lifecycle of endangered turtles, sharks, and migrating whales—yet noise, overfishing, and chemicals are decimating its ecosystem.
Called a “golden floating rainforest” by Dr Sylvia Earle, the Sargasso is both sacred and suffocating—home to life, and to human waste.