The cabo de corrientes and the Bahama Channel: the current the Spanish carrera sailed on

Off the Florida cape in May of Juan Ponce de León's first voyage the ships met water running harder than the wind, and the crown's chronicle records that the cape was named for it. Four years later the pilot of that voyage argued the short Florida-to-Havana crossing as the better and safer route home, and the Bahama Channel became the return leg of the Indies run. Three centuries later the Spanish hydrographic office catalogued the same current under its English name.