~ Captain Paul's response to: ~ Tony Ve ~

I can’t guarantee the Yellow Fins, but I can give you the coordinates you asked for, plus some more that are also in the MISSISSIPPI CANYON (MC) LEASED BLOCKS of the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). 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 in to certain Blocks which are usually, but not always so, rectangles. The rectangles are then sequentially numbered with in 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 then 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.

Their 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. These two charts both list the Leased Areas and their internal Blocks along the Louisiana coast.

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. (MC)

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. 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 sixty 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° would convert to 28° 20.4921264’. You would naturally round that latitude off to 28° 20.492’ 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, and enter the positions, changing 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
In 6500 deep water

THUNDER HAWK
MC 736
28.26728694
-88.39892063
In 6050 feet of water

SOME of the other major Platforms in the Mississippi Canyon area are:

Cognac
MC 194
28.34153544
-88.26568688
In 1000 feet of water

Lena
MC281
28.662679
-89.157757
In 1000 feet of water

Corral
MC 365
28.600964
-89.31131
In 600 feet of water

Amberjack
MC 109
28.86467752
-88.93079054
In 1100 feet of water

Alabaster
MC 397
28.546431
89.929614
500 feet of water

Mars
MC 80
28.169524
-89.222876
In 2900 feet of water

Ursa
MC 854
28.15402604
-89.10355357
In 4000 feet of water

Horn Mountain
MC 127
28.86601399
-88.05626441
In 5400 feet

Medusa Spar
MC 582
28.39240104
-89.45346089
In 2300 feet of water

Matterhorn
MC 243
28.7422692
88.82563305
In 2800 feet

NAKIKA
MC 474
28.52090278
88.28878889
In 6350 feet of water

Devils Tower
MC 773
28.20875531
-88.73747383
5600 Feet

SIMBA
MC 21
28.93725333
-88.91196917
In 680 feet of water

Thunder Horse
MC 778
28.19060986
-88.49558496
In 6200 of water

Innovator
MC 711
28.22065524
89.61507167
In 3000 feet of water

Independence
MC 920
28.08505618
-87.98583928
In 8000 feet of water

WHO DAT
MC547
28.41538737
-89.0162066
In 3200 Feet of water

Mirage/Titan
MC 941
28.03350591
-89.10061223
In 4000 feet of water

Enter these platforms in your unit AND on the aforementioned NOAA charts and you will have a very good back up 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.

~ Captain Paul ~