In the excess of 100 surface drifters have been launched using ships of 
opportunity into the Caribbean Sea over the last 2-3 years as part of the 
National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) Year of the Ocean (YOTO). All 
drifters are drogued at 15m and repart surface poritions and temperatures. 
Drifters launched into the eastern and northern Caribbean show a Broad westward 
drift with considerable evidence of both cyclonic and anticyclonic mesoscale 
eddies. This flow does not become more organized until drifters approach the 
Yucatan Channel. By contrast, drifters launched into the southwestern Caribbean 
(with assistance from the Colombian Navy) have shown the presence of a 
quasi-permanent cyclonic gyre known as the Panama-Colombian Gyre (PCG). This 
gyre exhibits considerable seasonal and shorter-term variability. Retention 
times for drifters launched in the PCG are order several months. Very few 
drifters from the open Caribbean find their way into the PCG; however, a large 
number of PCG drifters exit the PCG at various locations and times, and a 
significant number of these become trapped in shelf waters south of Cuba. This 
latter fact has implications for biological problems of larval transport and 
interconnectivity of coastal habitats. Observed drifter tracks are compared to 
numerical surface drifters "deployed" in a high-resolution isopycnic-coordinate 
numerical model. Similar seasonal variability is observed in both real and 
numerical drifter trajectories; in particular, a deformation of the flow field 
in late summer has been observed in the model as well as in two sequential years 
of drifter observations. Over longer periods, numerical drifter concentrations 
in the PCG decrease until a balance is achieved between northward Ekman 
advection and diffusion of drifters from the interior.