Mississippi Canyon full of rigs
Dear Capt. Paul,
Can you give me the GPS locations of the Blind Faith and Thunder Hawk rigs and any other coordinates you may have for areas to fish yellows out there?
TV
Capt. Paul’s response:
I can’t guarantee the yellowfins, but I can give you the coordinates you asked for, plus some more that are also in the Mississippi Canyon leased block of the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. The BSEE is the federal agency that leases, inspects and tracks the offshore mineral activity, both oil and gas sites in the coastal waters of the U.S.
The coastal waters are designated as certain areas, usually particular to the sea floor or some other land feature. These areas are then divided into certain blocks that are usually but not always so rectangles. The rectangles are then sequentially numbered within the area.
You may find over 10 different “Block 50” areas along the Louisiana coastal areas, each in a different leased area.
A particular platform or site is listed by the leased area followed by the block in that area. So when you see a reference of MC 650, it means the platform is somewhere in Block 650 of the Mississippi Canyon Leased Block area.
The Web site for data query is located at http://www.data.bsee.gov/homepg/data_center/platform/platform/master.asp.
Once on that site, you can search for offshore data via numerous criterion. One of which is the particular leased area or leased area block.
A copy of NOAA Marine charts 1115~Leased Blocks Cape St. George (FL) to Mississippi River Passes and 1116 Leased Blocks Miss River to Galveston (TX) are a must for locating the leased areas and the designated blocks within those leased areas.
Knowing that both Blind Faith and Thunder Hawk were in the Mississippi Canyon Leased area, I began my search using the general search for all platforms in the Mississippi Canyon.
I located both of your requested locations, as well as many others that you may pass getting to the Blind Faith and Thunder Hawk sites.
In using the BSEE site, you will notice that locations are all listed in decimal degrees using NAD 27 datum. So either set your GPS unit to the decimal degrees (DDD.dddddddd) position format and NAD 27 Datum setting and then after entering the positions, change back to the position (or) location format and the datum that you normally use.
Your GPS unit guided to these locations. The (-) sign in front of the longitude value means it is in the western hemisphere. All of the below positions should be entered as N latitude and W longitude.
Another way would be to mathematically convert the decimal degrees to a position of degrees, minutes and decimal minutes (DDD,MM.mmm) by multiplying the decimal part of the DDD.dddddddd position by 60.
There are 60 minutes in a degree, so the decimal part is that part of 60 minutes. The below Blind Faith position of decimal degrees of 28.34153544 degrees would convert to 28 degrees, 20.4921264 minutes. You would naturally round that latitude off to 28 degrees, 20.492 minutes and enter it into your unit.
You would have to do this math for both the latitude and longitude of each of the below-listed positions. The easiest way is to simply change the position format and datum to the decimal degrees and NAD 27, enter the positions and change back to your normal settings: The GPS unit will do the math for you for both the positions formats and the datum.
Blind Faith (MC 650) — 28.34153544/-88.26568688
This rig is located in 6,500 deep water.
Thunder Hawk (MC 736) — 28.26728694/-88.39892063
This rig is positioned in 6,050 feet of water.
Some of the other major platforms in the Mississippi Canyon area include:
Cognac (MC 194) — 28.34153544/-88.26568688
It is floating in 1,000 feet of water.
Lena (MC281) — 28.662679/-89.157757
It is found in 1,000 feet of water.
Corral (MC 365) — 28.600964/-89.31131
Corral is located in 600 feet of water.
Amberjack ( MC 109) — 28.86467752/-88.93079054
Look for Amberjack to be in 1,100 feet of water.
Alabaster (MC 397) — 28.546431/-89.929614
It is found in 500 feet of water.
Mars (MC 80) — 28.169524/-89.222876
It is in 2,900 feet of water.
Ursa (MC 854) — 28.15402604/-89.10355357
Ursa is located in 4,000 feet of water.
Horn Mountain (MC 127) — 28.86601399/-88.05626441
This rig is in 5,400 feet of water.
Medusa Spar (MC 582) — 28.39240104/-89.45346089
This platform will be in 2,300 feet of water.
Matterhorn (MC 243) — 28.7422692/-88.82563305
Look for Matterhorn to be in 2,800 feet of water.
NAKIKA (MC 474) — 28.52090278/-88.28878889
NAKIKA is in 6,350 feet of water.
Devils Tower (MC 773) — 28.20875531/-88.73747383
MC 773 is in 5,600 feet of water.
SIMBA (MC 21) — 28.93725333/-88.91196917
This rig is in 680 feet of water.
Thunder Horse (MC 778) — 28.19060986/-88.49558496
This rig is in 6,200 of water.
Innovator (MC 711) — 28.22065524/-89.61507167
Find this rig in 3,000 feet of water.
Independence (MC 920) — 28.08505618/-87.98583928
This rig is in 8,000 feet of water.
WHO DAT ( MC547) — 28.41538737/-89.0162066
This platform is located in 3,200 Feet of water.
Mirage/Titan (MC 941) — 28.03350591/-89.10061223
Mirage/Titan sits in 4,000 feet of water.
Enter these platforms in your unit and on the aforementioned NOAA charts, and you will have a very good backup for your GPS-installed positions.
Unless otherwise specified, all positions are stated as decimal degrees (DDD.dddddd) and were determined using NAD 27 Datum. All bearings and courses are stated in magnetic degrees.
