Same Course for Jaradites, Nephites and Mulekites

The infamous Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean or the Austral Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60º South Latitude, though since Captain James Cook first discovered these waters, geographers have disagreed on the northern boundary or even its existence, considering the waters part of the Pacific, Antarctic and Indian Oceans. In any event, this ocean flows toward the east and encircles the globe, passing north of Antarctica.

The Southern Ocean moves unimpeded around the world, creating the fastest and most direct current on the planet

The International Hydrographic Organization in Limits of Oceans and Seas in 2000 officially named this the fifth ocean of the world and as such it is regarded as the fourth-largest of the five principle oceanic divisions, smaller than the Pacific, Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, but larger than the Arctic Ocean. It is the only ocean that flows unimpeded completely around the world, creating a continual, fast-moving current from west to east, called the West Wind Drift along with the wind referred to as the Westerlies. It is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, encircling Antarctica and is impacted or affected by adjacent landmasses, submarine topography, and prevailing winds, irregular in width and course. This West Wind Drift is th dominant circulation feature of the Southern Ocean and has a mean transport estimated at 100 to 150 Sverdrups, or possibly even higher, making it the largest ocean current. The current is circumpolar due to the lack of any landmass connecting with Antarctica and this keeps warm ocean waters away from Antarctica, enabling that continent to maintain its huge ice sheet.
    This ocean zone was created because of the recent research and interest over ocean circulations, currents, and flow patterns, and a wider interest in global seas. This research has identified that one of the main drivers of ocean systems is the “Southern Circulation,” which sets the Southern Ocean apart as a separate eco-system. As a result the term Southern Ocean has been used to define that huge body of water which lies south of the northern limit. Thinking of this body of water as various parts of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans makes no scientific sense. New national boundaries arise for geographical, cultural or ethnic reasons, so it was argued why not a new ocean, if there is sufficient cause?
    At approximately 7.8 million square miles and about twice the size of the United States, the new ocean lowest point is 23,737 feet below sea level in the South Sandwich Trench, with a sea temperature from 28°F to 50°F. It is home to the world's largest ocean current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, or West Wind Drift, that moves east and transports 100 times the flow of all the world's rivers. This zone is where cold, northward flowing waters from the Antarctic mix with warmer subantarctic waters.
    It should be noted that the Southern Ocean current has been known to sailors for centuries; it greatly speeds up any travel from west to east, but makes sailing extremely difficult from east to west, although this is mostly due to the prevailing westerly winds. Jack London’s story Make Westing and the circumstances preceding the mutiny on the Bounty poignantly illustrate the difficulty it caused for mariners seeking to round Cape Horn westbound on the clipper ship route from New York to California.

The famed Chinese Clippers were able to cut down the distance across the ocean by dropping down to the Southern Ocean to cross the Pacific before turning northward up the Atlantic to New York or Europe

The eastbound clipper route, which is the fastest sailing route around the world, follows the West Wind Drift current around three continental capes: Cape Agulhas (Africa), South East Cape (Australia), and Cape Horn (South America).
    As has been stated in many earlier posts, when leaving the southern Arabian Peninsula, and sailing into the Indian Ocean, which Lehi named Irreantum (the Arabian Sea), the currents and winds move from the northeast to the southwest into the Indian Ocean during the Winter Monsoon (or reverse and blow inland across India from the southwest to the northeast in the Summer Monsoon). In no case do they blow eastward (from west to east) toward Indonesia as many theorists like to claim.
    Once past the storm center of the trade winds that move in a narrow gyre between Australia and Madagascar, the currents and winds bend eastward, moving a sailing ship “driven forth before the wind,” toward and into the Southern Ocean. In this ocean, the West Wind Drift currents (the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties and Screaming Sixties) are pushed along at unprecedented high speeds by the winds of the Prevailing Westerlies, a wind and current circulation that moves swiftly and completely around the globe from the west toward the east because there are no land masses to interfere with its movement like exists with all other oceans.
    Now when this wind and the currents approach the continental shelf of South America, the northern portion is pushed northward by two things: 1) the continental shelf itself, and 2) by the north-moving underwater currents that become the Humboldt or Peruvian Current as they continue northward along the west coast of South America.

The Humboldt Current, also known as the Peruvian Current, break off from the Southern Ocean and forced upward (Northward) by the South American Shelf, creating a highly nutrient coastal current

 

The Important Humboldt Current. As the ice cold waters of the Antarctic rise toward the surface, they are pushed northward by the warmer waters of the Southern Ocean. As they move along the coast, the warmer waters push them downward and inward toward the coast. This process, known as upwelling causes a constant flow toward the coast all along Chile and Peru to the outflow of the Peruvian bulge that eventually drives the Humboldt Current out into the northern branch of the South Equatorial Current as it heads westward back across the Pacific in the southern counter-clockwise gyre.
    This Humboldt Current has its beginning from a welling up in the Antarctic area and moving northward along the west coast of South America. Also called the Peruvian Current, it is the north-moving extension of the West Wind Drift, which is blown clockwise around the globe and was occasionally suggested by anthropologists as being an inviting highway for eastbound migrations across the Pacific.  This circumnavigational current is part of the well-known gigantic circulation of surface water in the Southeast Pacific and is a cold ocean current drifting east towards Tierra del Fuego and southern Chile, where part of the water passes south of the Americas and into the extreme South Atlantic Ocean while the other part, blocked by the projecting tip of the South American mainland, is forced in a big circular movement up along the Chilean coast, and brings an extravaganza of fish from the south northward and to the surface, making these waters some of the finest commercial fishing on the planet.
    Because of the continual turnover of cold water warming and warm water driving the cold downward and then back up, the flux of movement toward the coast is continually circling, constantly bringing fish up to the surface as it slows along its ocean-side and moves up the coast because of an increasing set towards the west of an upswelling off both Chile and Peru
    Thus, there are two points a surface sailing ship would normally be driven to shore along this coast. The first, is along the 30º south latitude, the Tropic of Cancer, where present day Coquimbo provides a protected bay and harbor for a sailing ship, and where winds and currents die down to calm water, and landfall would be a natural inward (toward land) movement. The other, is where the Peruvian bulge begins to affect the northward flow and drive it outward. At this point, around present day Lima, Peru, the Humboldt is driven inland in its last circular movement before being dragged outward and into the outflow of the Equatorial Current. A sailing ship at this point, “driven forth before the wind,” could easily make landfall along the inviting beaches.

The three places where the Lord brought groups into the Land of Promise

These are the two main landing sites along the coast of South America, and seen in the Book of Mormon as the landing areas of the Nephites (Lehi at Bay of Coquimbo) and the Mulekites (Mulek along the Chilean coast just south of Lima, Peru at an area today called Pachacamac).
    There is another landing site to consider, since it is possible to reach the northern Ecuadorian coast along this current between May and November when it forces its way far up the coast before it is driven west by the Nino Current. However, most of the currents strike the finger of land just beyond the Bay of Guayaquil, in what today is Elena Point in Ecuador, which juts out into the Pacific as the westernmost point on the South American west coast, and where the underwater currents caused by the coastal waters is completely blocked toward shore.
    Barges that moved on the surface with currents driven by the winds, and that were so constructed they were at times submersible, moving with underwater currents, would have ended up here—like flotsam moving along the surface and beneath with the coastal currents that eventually brings it upon the shore.
    Any weather-driven sailing craft, or in the case of the Jaredite barges, “driven forth before the wind,” not effecting a landing along the coast from Coquimbo to Lima, would be trapped by the circular gyre and pulled back out to sea by the extension of land in a great sweep due west and into the South Equatorial Current and end up in Indonesia, sailing westward into the islands or south toward Australia.