Navigation Response Team 1 finds vehicle during survey of Intracoastal Waterway, assists sheriff’s office

While surveying the approaches to Panama City (FL), St Andrews Bay, and West Bay, Coast Survey’s Navigation Response Team 1 recently made an unexpected find. When team members Mark McMann and Aurel Piantanida reviewed hydrographic data collected with their side scan sonar and multibeam echo sounder, they discovered an upside-down vehicle in Panama City’s West Bay Creek, part of the Intracoastal Waterway (see chart 11385).

NRT 1's multibeam echo sounder captures the submerged car's image.
NRT1’s multibeam echo sounder captures the submerged car’s image.

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NOAA Coast Survey to improve “magenta line” on Intracoastal Waterway nautical charts

The rebuilt "magenta line" will be a directional guide to help assure navigation safety.
The rebuilt “magenta line” will be a directional guide to help assure navigation safety.

The Office of Coast Survey announced today that future editions of nautical charts of the Intracoastal Waterway will be updated to include an improved “magenta line” that has historically aided navigation down the East Coast and around the Gulf Coast. Additionally, Coast Survey will change the magenta line’s function, from the perceived “recommended route” established more than a hundred years ago, to an advisory directional guide that helps prevent boaters from going astray in the maze of channels that comprise the route.
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