Plea For Data: Salish Sea Bottom Hazards

Our recent experience in Friday Harbor tells me that our charts are not adequate.  There is at least one more wreck in Friday Harbor that is not on them, tho it is marked by a buoy.  But buoys break loose, and then the wrecks become marked only by local lore.

It strikes me that there is a lot of data on wrecks out there... existing as pencil scratchings on charts, notes in logs, etc.

It is time.  It is well past time, that this data be consolidated and made available to all.  Navionics has what they call "community edits" - crowd-sourced data, but not everyone uses Navionics.

So this is a plea:  A plea for all who read this post to dig thru their logs and charts and make all that accumulated wisdom and experience available to the entire boating community.

I will volunteer to maintain a public database of Salish Sea Bottom Hazards, until a better method for making this community data available to the entire community exists.

Here's how you can contribute and help your fellow boaters:

1. Dig thru those logs and review all those notes on your charts.  
2. For each wreck or other bottom hazard, note:
   
   • The location of the hazard - GPS/Lat-Long coordinates are most desirable, but if you don't have them then a verbal description
   • A description of the nature of the hazard, if known or available
   • The source of the data... Hard experience (!), NOAA, Navionics community edit, cruising guide, etc
   • If you wish to be associated with the entry and how (email, name, boat name, etc)
3. Send this information in an email to WindborneInPugetSound (at) gmail (dot) com

Please don't worry that you might be providing duplicate data - that's fine.  I will sort it out.

So dig thru those charts and logs!  Be an active part of our boating community - lets all help each other!

Looking forward to your emails.

Bob
s/v Eolian

(Selfishly, I am most interested in data from Blind Bay, Friday Harbor, Echo Bay, Reid Harbor and Parks Bay.  In Parks Bay especially I would like confirmation of reports that the charted pilings in the south end of the bay have been removed, as has been variously reported) 

Plea For Data: Salish Sea Bottom Hazards