During the period 1992--1998 38 isobaric RAFOS floats were deployed 
to sample the subsurface flow of the California Undercurrent. The 
deployments, released over the California continental slope west of 
San Francisco, have shown the robust year--round poleward flow of the 
Undercurrent. Two other types of flow have been seen: a region of 
weak flow with little net displacement just west of the California 
Undercurrent, and an active westward propagating eddy
field. This eddy field appears to be the primary mechanism for moving 
floats from the Undercurrent into the ocean interior. The 
observations and statistics from the RAFOS floats are compared with 
Lagrangian estimates of particles tracked in a global high resolution 
ocean simulation in order to evaluate the fidelity of the model along 
an eastern boundary. The results show that the model reproduces the 
general character of the flow reasonably well, but underestimates 
both the mean and eddy energies by a substantial amount.