An eddy that was keeping oil from heading toward the Florida Keys has reconnected with the Loop Current, which could send it toward the Dry Tortugas, government and private university oceanographers said Thursday. Two monitor floats dropped in the Gulf of Mexico traveled clockwise through the spinning eddy, but then entered the Loop Current and now are heading toward Naples, according to the Ocean Circulation Group’s model.

Oceanographer Robert Weisberg speculated they eventually could connect with the Florida Current, which now is running about 40 to 60 miles off the Keys through the Florida Straits, according to Erik Stabenau, an oceanographer working with the government’s Joint Incident Command in Miami.

Stabenau confirmed the eddy is reattaching to the Loop Current, but could not say how much water and possibly oil was being transferred. The Loop Current could send oil sheen and tar balls to the Keys, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Thursday said such menaces still were several hundred miles away from the Tortugas and Keys. There were no plans Thursday to ban fishing in any areas near the Tortugas, National Marine Fisheries Service spokeswoman Kim Amendola said.