Geosat data are processed and analyzed into sea level variations over the tropical Pacific Ocean during the first 26 months of the Exact Repeat Mission from November 15 1986 to January 15 1989. The resolution is 1¿ latitude and longitude and 10 days. The frequency and wave number spectra of these sea level variations show much more energy in the northeastern than in the western or southern Pacific. Energy highs of 8000 cm2 per (cycle per day) per (cycle per degree of longitude) are clearly identified along 5¿N for periods of 28--40 days and wavelengths of 1000--2200 km (band 1), and along 12¿N for periods of 50--90 days and wavelengths of 630--950 km (band 2). Filtered in energy band 1, the sea level anomalies show a maximum amplitude of 8 cm between 4¿ and 7¿N and no symmetry nor antisymmetry with respect to the equator, a zonal westward phase velocity of 35 km/day and an eastward group velocity of 30 km/day. As a function of longitude, the filtered signal presents three different regimes separated by the Line and Marshall islands. The amplitude is strongest east of 160¿W (2.5 cm time averaged), weak west of the data line (1.0 cm), and intermittent and weak (1.1 cm) along 2000 km in the central Pacific. In the eastern region, amplitude is seasonally modulated with a minimum in April--May and a maximum in December--January corresponding in time with the variation of the zonal shear flow between the North Equatorial Countercurrent (NECC) and the South Equatorial Current as derived from the altimeter meridional gradient. Filtered in energy band 2, the sea level anomalies show a maximum amplitude of 6 cm between 10¿N and 13¿N, a westward phase propagation of 12 km/day, and an eastward group velocity of 10 km/day. The amplitude of the waves is strongest east of 120 ¿W between February and July 1987 and between November 1987 and March 1988. These wave packets are well correlated both in time and space with the increase of the zonal shear between the NECC and the North Equatorial Current. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1990