Derde reys, gedaan voor de Engelsche Maatschappy na Oost-Indien, met drie scheepen, de Draak, Hector, en ...

Where they are embarrassed.

At this moment, we could not see the land, although we were only 10 miles away from it. I knew no way to get out of this current, for if I held further off, I had to fear the island of Nova likely referring to a shoal or island designated as such on older charts, and if I held toward the land, God knows what danger might be there. Since such a breeze could not overcome the current, it seemed imprudent to struggle against it.

Conjectures on the cause of this current.

On the 17th, we were at 14 degrees, 57 minutes, so that we had been pushed twenty-five miles toward the North. By estimation, we had advanced 22 miles, and through observation and shooting the altitude, we had come much further, so that the main force of the current seemed to have been broken. My skipper was of the opinion that the first quarters of the moon held dominion over this current, which set in so strongly until three or four days after it is full. But it seems more probable to me that the deep bay between Cape Corrientes and Mozambique is the cause of a draft or current which falls in either from the Northeast, or somewhat more Easterly, from the Northeast of St. Lawrence or Madagascar, and continues along the land toward the Cape of Corrientes, and subsequently proceeds; or that the current which is said to come from the Northwest of St. Lawrence, striking against the land of Mozambique, is thus carried along that entire region. If this is true, then we made a mistake by keeping to the side of the land before we had reached further North than the Point of Mozambique, which juts far out into the sea; for if we had not fallen too far Westward, and had kept the aforementioned Cape closer to our meridian line, we would not have encountered the current at all.