Ireland measures up sea borders

Publisher : Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI) 
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From Independant.ie

For the first time in almost 60 years the exact measurements of the country's territorial waters, including part of the disputed Rockall Bank, are being taken from 50 specially selected points.

 Rockall

Operation Baseline will help chart more accurate maritime maps and be used to cement claims to the continental shelf up to 350 miles from shore.
Over the last few weeks the Air Corps winched geographers on to some of the most inaccessible headlands and islands on our shores to mark co-ordinates first given to the United Nations in 1959.

 source : GSI / Marine Institute

A Department of Foreign Affairs official said the new measurements will accurately record Ireland's shores and seas down to centimeters .
"The new coordinates will be used to update electronic maritime charts and the project will also allow the outer limits of the State's maritime zones to be determined with much greater accuracy," she said.
"More accurate mapping is important for a range of matters including exploration, licensing and law enforcement."

As part of the operation, an Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) team used GPS to pinpoint the 50 locations and permanently marked them with brass plates.

 Scart Rock Skarv is the Norwegian word for cormorant.

Scarf and Scart are common place names and refer to rocks and skerries popular with cormorants. The rocks lie just off the entrance to Dunbar Harbour.

The most northerly is Scart Rocks off Malin Head, with the western extremities including an unnamed rock beside Black Rock lighthouse off Mayo and the Great Foze Rock off the Blasket Islands in Kerry.
Along the south coast Bream Point on Cape Clear in Cork and Carnsore Point in Wexford are on the limits.

Andy McGill, Operation Baseline co-ordinator with the OSi, said the job could not have been done without Air Corps pilots and winchmen and the Navy on standby.
"Basically it is redefining the territorial limits," he said.
"But it was extremely exhilarating. We had guys out there for 10-12 hours and it would take another six hours for them to calm down once they were back in - the adrenaline really gets going. You are working in an extremely hazardous environment.
"We didn't expect to get access to all the points but the guys in the Air Corps and Navy made it so easy."

 Nautical map for Ireland with the Marine GeoGarage (UKHO)

Ireland has a 12 mile territorial sea, a 200 mile exclusive economic zone before any additional claims are made to the continental shelf including the Rockall Bank.
The Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI) says potential territorial waters stretch to 898,442km sq - an area bigger than the oil rich North Sea.

But claims to Rockall - the pudding shaped remnants of an extinct volcano in North Atlantic and the inspiration for a rebel song - are virtually pointless under international law.
Ireland has never attempted to seize the rock but it has made claims for some of the potentially oil rich sea bed around it up to 500 nautical miles from shore and known as Hatton-Rockall.
The claim has been agreed with the UK but is rejected by the Faroe Islands.

Bathymetric multibeam data from GSI in Olex software

Ireland has successfully claimed an extra 39,000 km sq of seabed off the west coast beside the Porcupine Bank and a second claim for a swathe of the Celtic Sea and Bay of Biscay is being negotiated with France, Spain and the UK.
Another 15 points will be marked as part of Operation Baseline in separate weather dependent missions over the next few weeks.

Links :

• IrishExaminer : Ireland gets back on rocky road to Rockall riches
• The Guardian : Who owns Rckall ? A history of legal and diplomatic wrangles
• GeoGarage blog : Rockall reveals what lies beneath
• Mida : the Marine Irish digital atlas

US NOAA update in the Marine GeoGarage

As our public viewer is not yet available
(currently under construction, upgrading to Google Maps API v3 as v2 is officially no more supported),
this info is primarily intended to our iPhone/iPad universal mobile application users
(Marine US on the App Store)
and also to our B2B customers which use our nautical charts layers in their own webmapping applications through our GeoGarage API. 

 NOAA raster chart coverage

20 charts have been updated in the Marine GeoGarage

(NOAA update October 2014, released October 20th 2014)

• 11316 ed0 Matagorda Bay and approaches
• 11369 ed0 Lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas
• 11380 ed3 Mobile Bay East Fowl River to Deer River Pt; Mobile Middle Bay Terminal
• 11485 ed0 Intracoastal Waterway Tolmato River to Palm Shores
• 11489 ed0 Intracoastal Waterway St. Simons Sound to Tolmato River
• 11490 ed0 Approaches to St. Johns River;St. Johns River Entrance
• 11491 ed0 St. Johns River-Atlantic Ocean to Jacksonville
• 11526 ed0 Wando River Upper Part
• 12277 ed36 Chesapeake and Delaware Canal
• 12304 ed47 Delaware Bay
• 12365 ed28 South Shore of Long Island Sound Oyster and Huntington Bays
• 12366 ed30 Long Island Sound and East River Hempstead Harbor to Tallman Island
• 14963 ed21 Grand Marais to Big Bay Point;Big Bay Harbor
• 14964 ed22 Big Bay Point to Redridge;Grand Traverse Bay Harbor;Lac La Belle harbor;Copper and Eagle Harbors
• 14975 ed36 Duluth-Superior Harbor;Uppers St. Louis River
• 16200 ed0 Norton Sound;Golovnin Bay
• 16204 ed7 Port Clarence and approaches
• 18686 ed0 Pfeiffer Point to Cypress Point
• 11478 ed24 Port Canaveral;Canaveral Barge Canal Extension
• 11481 ed9 Approaches to Port Canaveral

Today 1026 NOAA raster charts (2168 including sub-charts) are included in the Marine GeoGarage viewer (see PDFs files)


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Please visit the NOAA's chart update service for more info or the online chart catalog

Cuba to foster nautical activities for tourism

Cuba nautical charts with the Marine GeoGarage

From Cuba News Agency

In an effort to make more attractive and diverse its tourism product, Cuba is committed to develop nautical activities, a modality with great potential but little exploited to date.

Tourism authorities told ACN their considerations on the opportunities and challenges to promote recreational activities in Cuban marinas and nautical areas.

 Varadero

According to Alexander Sierra, Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR by its Spanish acronym) Development CEO, in the plan designed by 2030 in order to boost an industry that seeks to be reinstated as engine of the economy, the above modality is one of the main priorities.
In this regard, he stressed they are now concentrating their actions in knowing the situation in this scenario, in order to execute investment to improve conditions and services in marinas, nautical centers, piers, moorings, harbors, shipyards, dry marinas and fishing and diving zones.
Process that must be well articulated with other policies and plans implemented by the Caribbean nation, as the Law of Ports and the one of Fishing, the shipyard recovery program, or the promotion of tourist cruise operations, among other strategies, Sierra told.

Club Nautico Internacional Hemingway (CNIH) de Cuba

In line with these projections, in October 2013 the Council of Ministers approved the Decree 314, which instituted a legal framework to regulate, control and develop the operation of touristic marinas on the island, in order to strengthen the competitiveness of these enclaves in the Caribbean.
According to Domingo Cisneros, acting chairman of Marlin S.A. Nautica and Marinas Business Group, through the process of reordering the country will propose more attractive products to international tourists market, generally of high standard, which could generate substantial revenues to the nation.

 Diving places Cuba

That is why they are promoting sport fishing, diving, kitesurfing, sea kayak and yachting, activities plenty of potential to grab the attention of lovers of such recreational disciplines in the world .
Naval technical conditions are also being improved in order to develop boat- adventure (speed-boat rides through Canarreos archipelago), mainly at the poles of Varadero and Cayo Coco, Cisneros said.
But beyond the intentions, resources are also essential; topic on which Jose R. Daniel, MINTUR Business Director, said that currently foreign partners to supply equipment and breakthrough technologies, needed for the conformation of more complete products, are sought.
Moreover, within the opportunities portfolio offered by the sector to foreign investors, management contracts of marinas and nautical centers are promoted among reputable companies to help raising quality standards, the official added.

From a business view, José M. Bisbé, president of Havanatur International Group of Tour Operators and Travel Agents, considered that Cuba treasures gorgeous seabed with coral reefs as few in the region due to their state of preservation and diversity of species that inhabit in these ecosystems.
It also has a wide network of marinas throughout the archipelago, to which the ambitious project Gaviota Varadero Marina recently joined, with capacity for over a thousand berths.

This shows that we are strongly work ing to provide activities such as diving and yachting, which may be the spearhead of ¨Autentica Cuba¨ promotional campaign in the world, Bisbé noted.
MINTUR´s actions gain strength, especially in view of the upcoming International Tourism Fair, which 35th edition will be devoted precisely to the nautical modality and for which Jardines del Rey (north of Camagüey), one of the main poles on which the activity is potentiated, was chosen to host it.

 Archipelago de los Jardines de la Reinas with the Marine GeoGarage

According to official data, there are in Cuba 39 international diving centers, 11 nautical bases and 12 marinas, nine of which operate with foreign boats; facilities mostly run by Marlin SA and Gaviota groups.
The main destinations where visitors can access those services include Jardines de la Reina (south of Camagüey), a place of unique beauty and well positioned in the international market with high purchasing clients that repeat every year.
Focused on receiving this year, for the first time, three million visitors, Cuba is opened to new projects, such as those related to the creation of golf courses, eco-tourism and circuits, in order to position in the international market a destination that has much more to offer than the one of sun and beach.

Links :

• SSCA : A cruising guide to Cuba

Asking for diver's help

Thomaz Monteiro and Flavia Passaglia from Brazil were diving at Bat Islands, Costa Rica, when this peaceful manta came.
Brian Thompson (from Canada) gently cut the net fishing and now the manta can live with no pain. Important: We picked up the line.
It's our trophy now! Brian, the diver who cut the line, gave a little piece for all divers there!.

Dolphins may be one of the planet's smartest creatures, but one thing they lack are opposable thumbs. However, they are clever enough to recognize that, in a pinch, they can approach humans to get help with those hard to reach spots.

The Ocean