~ Captain Paul's response to: ~Predator ~

Keep that icon on your screen and when there again mark it as a waypoint. in your unit. My charts show that the well site was covered up to a depth of 85 feet below the surface. It is a very valuable waypoint that many other anglers may not have.

I have this removed platform, cleared to a depth of 85 feet from the surface in water that varies from 84 to 89 feet, at a position of 28° 48.460’N ~ 090° 13.194’ W using WGS 84 Datum. That means that there could still be some well debris at and around the site to a height of 4 to 6 feet off of the bottom. This structure could be an invaluable fishing location. It is located in Leased Block 63 of the South Timbalier Leased block at about 19.5 miles from mouth of Belle Pass at the Gulf at a bearing of 170°Mag.

I suggest that you use your Depth Finder to locate any of the debris that may still be in the area and fish around it.

This site is one of 21 wells that fedsl oil-gas product to a main platform that is located to the South East at or about 28°47.610’N Latitude~090°12.155’ W longitude. This platform is about 1.5 miles away to the south east at a bearing of 133° Magnetic. This platform is at a 4 O’clock position in an oval that extends to the west and north west for about 2.8 miles. There are under water pipe lines connecting all of these wells in the oval to the aforementioned main platform, and appear to be spokes in a wheel.

These under water pipe lines are sometimes a productive location as they usually produce a throbbing sound in the water that attracts certain species of fish. Be very CAREFUL when anchoring in the area around the pipelines and well structures.

All of these locations are shown on NOAA Chart 11367, Timbalier and Terrebonne Bays and on Chart 1116A Leased Blocks Mississippi River to Galveston Bay. I strongly recommend that you obtain both of these charts and keep them on board during your trip.


Now for the main part of your question, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE ) has a web site at http://www.data.bsee.gov/homepg/data_center/platform/platform/master.asp/

It is the official government service which authorizes records and tracks all offshore well sites. The data base is available for searching at the site. It requires that you enter the LEASED BLOCK code and the Leased Block number if you know it and it will retrieve all to the data pertaining to that Leased Block.

The NOAA chart indicates the Leased Blocks and their code designation. Simply find a Leased Block area and the block number, and the site will indicate all of the wells and production platforms in the search.

In doing a search request you will find that the data is recorded using NAD 27 DATUM, that is DATUM not data, and is listed in Decimal Degrees (DDD.dddddd). To convert it to whatever DATUM and POSITION FORMAT that you are using in your GPS unit, you can simply change the DATUM setting in your unit to NAD 27 and the Position Format or “Location Units” to the H, DDD.dddddd setting, enter the positions then change the settings back to whatever DATUM and Position format you normally use. The GPS unit will do the conversion for you.

The difference between the listed NAD 27 datum at the BSEE site and the currently used DATUM of WGS 84 can amount to a position change of over 240 feet at this latitude. That is not all that important when going to a large platform that is 100 x 100 yards and six stories high, but it could be critical in finding some of the removed well sites.

If you prefer to do it the hard way, there are some programs on the internet that will compute the figures for you.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has a web site at http://www.agc.army.mil/corpscon/ that lets you download a conversion program to your computer that will do the DATUM conversion for you.

Then you would have to convert the Position Location format from Decimal Degrees to whatever Position Format you normally use. I have found a conversion program at http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html/ It will do the conversion for you or you can mathematically do each position for yourself.

If the first format is in DDD.dddddd (degrees and millionths of a degree) and you want to convert it to DDD,MM,mmm, you would multiply the decimal part of the ddd.dddddd by 60. That would produce a position that would be shown as ddd,mm.mmm (degrees, minutes and thousandths of a minute).
Round off the position to three positions past the decimal point and enter it in your GPS if you are using the DDD,MM.mmm settings.

Keep in touch and let me know how you make out.

Unless otherwise specified, all positions are stated as Degrees, minutes and thousandths of minutes (DDD,MM.mmm) and were determined using WGS 84 Datum. All bearings and courses are stated in Magnetic degrees.

~ Captain Paul ~