Outside of the canal the wind was still pretty strong and after a few hours we entered the Gulfstream. I had been a bit scared of this stream that flows very fast from west to east in the south of Florida and then turns left towards the north to flow along the coast in the strait of Florida between the US and the Bahamas. I had read and heard a lot abut the waves that develop in the stream and that you should by all means avoid a situation where the wind would blow against the stream. Well, for the first part of the trip where stream flows eastward it couldn’t be avoided. Southeasterly winds just wouldn’t arrive and so be had to beat into easterly winds and very rough waves. Amy and I got hammered. Two large waves made it into the cockpit and down the companionway and flooded the salon. I pumped out the water and tried to dry as much as possible. The water in the stream is very warm and extremely salty. Everywhere the water went there was a white crust afterwards. Fortunately this lasted only for the first night. Then the wind let off bait and we were turning north with the stream and the waves immediately got smaller.
