Yup, helen, you're thinking of "gyres" probably (close on the the spelling!) Those are surface currents and occur on a different timescale than the thermohaline circulation, which occurs on a "millenial" timescale. (And before you ask how on earth they figured that out - because I asked that too - they can track the circulation by observing different chemicals in the water that indicate where it originated.) There are both western and eastern boundary currents, and they are the ones you refer to. (In this case, west and east refer to the ocean basin, not the adjacent continent.) Because of the way the world turns, western boundary currents are more intense than the eastern ones, more closely constrained to the coastline. Western boundary currents move poleward and eastern boundary currents move equatorward. They are:
Western Boundary Currents: Gulf Stream (North Atlantic), Kuroshio (North Pacific), Agulhas (South Indian), Brazil (South Atlantic), East Australia (South Pacific)
Eastern Boundary Currents: California (North Pacific), Canary (North Atlantic), Peru (South Pacific), Benguela (South Atlantic), West Australia (South Indian)
There are also Equatorial Currents: the North and South Equatorial Currents (both going E-W), the Equatorial Counter Current (between them, going W-E), and the Equatorial Undercurrent (beneath them, W-E).
As for the cold upwelling (water from the deeper part of the ocean being drawn to the surface) during the summer on the west coast of NA, that is apparently caused by wind. The primary wind direction during summer in that region is north to south. When wind blows across the water, the net water transport is 90° to the right of the wind direction (Northern Hemisphere) rather than along the wind direction, as you might expect (creepy but true, blame Mr. Ekman for discovering that!) So the north-south wind causes water to move from east to west, and cold water comes up from the deep to take its place as it moves offshore.
