Looking a current map.
Obviously it would have been easier to travel via the North Equatorial Current. This is what Columbus did, no doubt earlier man did it too. Easy to travel up rivers along the Gulf Coast and end up in all kinds of places. Or get blown to the East Coast of Florida and travel up to the Carolinas and Virginia.
My reply to a FReepmail:
> Maybe this is too dumb to put on the board; but if they left Spain, drifted ...
Not dumb at all, that's the route Columbus made.
But heading out to blue water means provisioning: salted meat, barrels of water, veggies in straw, etc. A military-style naval expedition that I don't think was possible 20,000 years ago.
Note that even with sail, Columbus's ships were out of victuals by the time they got to San Salvador (or Cuba or whereever). And I doubt anyone once making landfall would stay on the water in a primative boat, up past the US coast and then decided Nova Scotia is the place to be ...