## The Drift: Not a Straight Line
Ocean currents are not rivers. They are complex, variable, and influenced by interactions between wind, water temperature, depth, and the geography of the ocean floor far below. The path that Alvarenga’s boat followed from the Mexican coast to the Marshall Islands was not a straight westward line; it was the result of a continuous interaction between the boat’s physical properties as a floating object and the evolving forces acting on the water surface around it.
The Pacific trade winds blow from east to west across the tropical Pacific, and the currents they generate are among the strongest in the world. Below approximately 10 degrees north latitude — which includes much of the route from the Mexican Pacific coast toward the Marshall Islands — the North Equatorial Current moves water consistently westward at speeds of roughly 10 to 20 miles per day under typical conditions. A passive floating object caught in this current travels roughly 300 to 600 miles per month, purely from the current’s movement, before any additional wind effect is added.
The boat was not simply a cork in this system; it was an object with a specific shape, a specific mass distribution, and a specific surface area exposed to wind. A fiberglass skiff sits partly above the waterline, and its hull shape means that wind acts on it differently than current does. This is why the oceanographic models use both current data and wind data — because floating objects move under the combined influence of both, and the interaction determines the actual path rather than just the theoretical water movement.