NOAA ENC

NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

US3FL1CH - GREAT BAHAMA BANK - NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN


INDEX:

NOTE A
AIDS TO NAVIGATION
POLLUTION REPORTS
CAUTION - USE OF RADIO SIGNALS (LIMITATIONS)
SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION
CAUTION - TEMPORARY CHANGES
WARNING - PRUDENT MARINER
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
AUTHORITIES
ADMINISTRATION AREA
CAUTION - GAS AND OIL WELL STRUCTURES
CAUTION - QUALITY OF BATHYMETRIC DATA
CAUTION - SUBMARINE PIPELINES AND CABLES
GULF STREAM CURRENTS
HORIZONTAL DATUM
HURRICANES AND TROPICAL STORMS
RACING BUOYS
RADAR REFLECTORS
WATER LEVELS, CURRENTS, AND TIDES
COMMENTS REQUESTED


NOTES:

NOTE A
Navigation regulations are published in Chapter 2 of each regional U.S. Coast Pilot. Additions or revisions to Chapter 2 are published in the Notice to Mariners. Information concerning the regulations may be obtained from the Coast Guard District Commander. Refer to charted regulation section numbers.


AIDS TO NAVIGATION
Consult U.S. Coast Guard Light List for supplemental information concerning aids to navigation. See National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Lists of Lights and Fog Signals for information not included in the U.S. Coast Guard Light List.


POLLUTION REPORTS
Report all spills of oil and hazardous substances to the National Response Center via 1-800-424-8802 (toll free), or to the nearest U.S. Coast Guard facility if telephone communication is impossible (33 CFR 153).


CAUTION - USE OF RADIO SIGNALS (LIMITATIONS)
Limitations on the use of radio signals as aids to marine navigation can be found in the U.S. Coast Guard Light Lists and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Publication 117. Radio direction-finder bearings to commercial broadcasting stations are subject to error and should be used with caution.


SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION
Consult U.S. Coast Pilot 4 for important supplemental information.


CAUTION - TEMPORARY CHANGES
Temporary changes or defects in aids to navigation are not indicated. See Local Notice to Mariners.


WARNING - PRUDENT MARINER
The prudent mariner will not rely solely on any single aid to navigation, particularly on floating aids. See U.S. Coast Guard Light List and U.S. Coast Pilot for details.


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Additional information can be obtained at www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov.


AUTHORITIES
Hydrography and topography by the National Ocean Service, Coast Survey with additional data from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard.


ADMINISTRATION AREA
The entire extent of this ENC cell falls within the limits of an Administration Area. This area covers land, internal waters, and territorial sea. The territorial sea is a maritime zone over which the United States exercises sovereignty extending to the airspace as well as to its bed and subsoil. For more information, please refer to the Coast Pilot.


CAUTION - GAS AND OIL WELL STRUCTURES
Numerous platforms and gas and oil well structures exist in the Gulf of America from Key West, Florida to Brazos Santiago, Texas. Some wells are submerged and capped. Only those structures reported submerged and covered less than 11 fathoms/20.1 meters are charted outside of the 10 fathom/18.2 meter curve. Location of surface platform structures and wells submerged 11 fathoms/20.1 meters or more can be seen by using cells in the scale band 3. Submarine pipelines and cables, aids to navigation and safety fairways through operational oil field areas.


CAUTION - QUALITY OF BATHYMETRIC DATA
The areas represented by the object M_QUAL (Quality of data) are approximate due to generalizing for clarity. Caution is advised, particularly for nearshore navigation or voyage planning. M_QUAL represents areas of uniform quality of bathymetric data. The CATZOC (Category of zone of confidence in data) attribute of M_QUAL provides an assessment of the overall zone of confidence.


CAUTION - SUBMARINE PIPELINES AND CABLES
Additional uncharted submarine pipelines and submarine cables may exist within the area of this chart. Not all submarine pipelines and submarine cables are required to be buried, and those that were originally buried may have become exposed. Mariners should use extreme caution when operating vessels in depths of water comparable to their draft in areas where pipelines and cables may exist, and when anchoring, dragging, or trawling.Covered wells may be marked by lighted or unlighted buoys.


GULF STREAM CURRENTS
From investigation by the Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1885, 1886 and 1887.


HORIZONTAL DATUM
The NOAA ENC references the World Geodetic System of 1984 (WGS-84). For charting purposes, the horizontal control of the current realization of WGS-84 is functionally equivalent to the international Terrestrial Reference Frame 2020 (ITRF2020) at the meter level for charts at scales of 1:5,000 or smaller.


HURRICANES AND TROPICAL STORMS
Hurricanes, tropical storms and other major storms may cause considerable damage to marine structures, aids to navigation and moored vessels, resulting in submerged debris in unknown locations. Charted soundings, channel depths and shoreline may not reflect actual conditions following these storms. Fixed aids to navigation may have been damaged or destroyed. Buoys may have been moved from charted positions, damaged, sunk, extinguished or otherwise made inoperative. Mariners should not rely upon the position or operation of an aid to navigation. Wrecks and submerged obstructions may have been displaced from charted locations. Pipelines may have become uncovered or moved. Mariners are urged to exercise extreme caution and are requested to report aids to navigation discrepancies and hazards to navigation to the nearest United States Coast Guard unit.


RACING BUOYS
Racing buoys within the limits of this chart are not shown hereon. Information may be obtained from the U.S. Coast Guard District Offices as racing and other private buoys are not all listed in the U.S. Coast Guard Light List.


RADAR REFLECTORS
Radar reflectors have been placed on many floating aids to navigation. Individual radar reflector identification on these aids has been omitted from this chart.


WATER LEVELS, CURRENTS, AND TIDES
Real-time water levels, tide predictions, and tidal current predictions are available on the internet from NOAA's Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) at https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/water_level_info.html and https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/currents_info.html .


COMMENTS REQUESTED
NOAA encourages users to submit inquiries, discrepancies, or comments about this chart via NOAA's ASSIST tool at https://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/customer-service/assist/ .


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