Chapter 1 | Gulf Stream: A Living Current

If Miami is the beginning, the Gulf Stream is where the story deepens. Just beyond the city lies one of the most powerful ocean currents on earth. It carries warm water from the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic, shaping climate, ecosystems and migratory routes across continents. Ancient, alive and constantly changing, it is far more than a body of water. It is a force that connects worlds. 

For Fortis, that made it the right place to continue. The Gulf Stream is a real environment defined by motion, pressure and unpredictability. It asks more of the people who enter it and of the tools they rely on. 

Why the Gulf Stream

For Lukas Müller, marine biologist, freediver and co-founder of Ocean Collective, the Gulf Stream represents the ocean at its most dynamic. It is a place where movement shapes everything. Water, temperature, light and life are all in flux. Species pass through it, ecosystems depend on it and nothing ever feels still for long.

That was exactly the point. The Marinemaster was not brought here to be admired from a distance. It was brought here to be used in an environment where timing matters and conditions can change in an instant. 

A System Full of Life

The Gulf Stream is one of the richest marine environments in the world. Warm water, floating seaweed and constant movement create the conditions for an incredible variety of life. It is a route used by many migrating species and a place where almost anything can appear out of the blue.

That is part of what makes it so compelling. When you enter the Gulf Stream, you do not know exactly what you will find. You enter it knowing that it is alive, that it is always changing and that it rewards patience, awareness and respect.

Where the Marinemaster Is Put to Work

Once you leave land and drift into the Gulf Stream, the role of the watch changes. In free diving, time is not abstract. You track intervals, measure your dives and stay aware of how far the current may have carried you. In a place this absorbing, it is easy to lose your sense of time. That is when the Marinemaster becomes part of orientation. 

As Lukas puts it, the Gulf Stream can draw you in so completely that time begins to dissolve. You are surrounded by life, by movement and by the pull of the current itself. That is why the watch matters. It keeps you grounded in a place that constantly tries to pull your attention elsewhere.

Rare Encounters

This was also the environment where the team set out to find some of the ocean’s most extraordinary animals. Great hammerheads, bull sharks and other large migratory species move through these waters. Encounters are never guaranteed. They happen on the ocean’s terms. 

For Lukas and Ocean Collective, that was part of the challenge and part of the appeal. The goal was not only to capture the Marinemaster in the Gulf Stream, but to place it in an ecosystem where life itself reflects function, adaptation and survival.

A Test? Yes. But...

That is what gives this chapter its character. The Gulf Stream is not simply a harder setting after Miami. It is the place where the story becomes more intense, more unpredictable and more real. The watch moves from the rhythm of the city into an environment where clarity, timing and trust matter in a different way. 

And that is what Fortis came for. Not controlled conditions or staged perfection. A real current, real pressure and real experience.

What's Next?

From here, the story continues with the people inside it. Roger Ruegger joins the experience as a participant. Florida’s pristine springs reveal a quieter and more fragile side of the journey. And behind it all is the making of the project itself, from the conditions and the dives to the work behind the imagery. 

If Miami Dive opened the chapter, Gulf Stream is where the watch enters the water and the story truly begins.