During our first sea day the Veendam sailed around Florida, having cleared the Tampa sea buoy just before 11 pm. the evening before. Next day April 2nd., it took until 7 am to reach the most western point of Florida, the island group called the Dry Tortugas. These low islands are the most western islands that form together the Florida Keys.

In the olden days we could sail between the islands and in that way gain an hour by “cutting the corner”. Nowadays it is a nature reserve so we sail around it. As a matter of fact the whole area around the keys is of special interest and a “stay out” zone of seven miles has been created for that purpose. We stay with the ship at least 12 miles out.

As soon as the ship was clear of the Islands the search for Gulf Stream started. The Gulf Stream is a major world current that forms part of an ocean going current system that travels through all the world oceans. In the Caribbean Sea it is called the North equatorial current, and runs north of the South American coast, and as soon as it passes Cozumel and enters the Florida straits it becomes the Gulf Stream. There it picks up speed, as the all the water from the Caribbean sea is pressed through the Florida straits and water is added from the Gulf of Mexico, also the Trade winds blowing through the Caribbean sea help the momentum.

The Gulf Stream can reach a velocity of up to four knots. The problem is to find the axis of the current, there where the current is the strongest. The axis of the current is not always in the same position, sometimes it is closer to Cuba and sometimes it is closer to the Florida Keys.

The American weather bureau’s give out predictions but these are average locations. Thus the way to do it is to change course according to plan and if we do not see an increase in ships speed, deviate a little bit until we find the current. This time we picked the current up an hour past Key West and it gave us 2.5 knots extra for the remainder of the afternoon and evening.

By 23.00 we were sailing inside the North West Providence channel located between Freeport to the north and Nassau to the South. When I started sailing in 1981, we only saw the occasional cargo ship in this area. Now with cruising being so popular the channel is full of cruise ships.

Sailing ahead of us was the Majesty of the Seas (RCI), next to us the veteran cruise ship Regal Empress (built in 1953) and behind us the Queen Mary 2 (Cunard). At 00.30 on April 3rd we entered the North Atlantic Ocean for our crossing to Punta Delgada, and the weather is still looking very good.