Depth numbers in a dotted circle usually means a danger to navigation; in this case at a depth of 10ft. The accompanying note “Obstn” is obvious in it’s meaning.
What confuses me is that this 10ft “obstruction” seems to be on a contour line that is all 10ft. I don’t understand that and it makes me think I must be off in some way.
As a fisherman, the idea of some sort of underwater structure that differentiates itself from the rest of the bottom is an area of interest, so I will check it out with a line in the water anyway, but I’m curious what this notation is really telling me.
(The magenta teardrop is pointing to a fixed navigation light, not the “obstn”)
The line between 10 and 16 is the 16ft line. The bottom is sloping down from right to left, and so towards the 16ft line the bottom is probably nearly 16ft deep. But at the left hand edge of the 10ft obstruction, it would only be 10ft.
I can see what you are saying in that if you were at 10ft of draft you would be safe in the 10ft area, whether over the obstruction or not. But if you were at say 14ft and thought (based on the 16ft line) you could go slightly over to the right of the 16ft line based on the likely slope of the bottom, you would be wrong where the obstruction is.
Something that I can actually answer since I worked at NOAA making nautical charts about 15 years ago.
First, those are not contour lines, they are depth curves and there is a difference. A contour line is supposed to represent how things look exactly in the real world. They are also closed shapes and so do not have ends. A depth curve does not have to be closed and if you notice in your picture a couple of the lines run into the shore and end.
When they make the curves they take any surveys that have and follow the general line of depths. There can be deeper parts behind the curves but there will not be shallower parts outside of the curve. There could be sections that look like this:
5 4 6 5 4
6 8 6 7 5
8 9 7 7 9
and the curve would run between the bottom two lines like:
The Obstn is telling you that there is something there, it really could be anything, it could be part of what looks like the pier right there has sunk, or possibly a large tree has sunk there. I don’t believe it means it’s a rock though as I thought they had a different symbol for that. It is telling you though that somewhere in that circle is something that could hit your boat if you draw more then 10 feet. It’s probably not known exactly what it is though.
I will ask some of my buddies at lunch if I remember exactly how they chart those.
[I also meant to edit my last post but the boards wouldn’t let me.
This is a marina that was dredged and built in the 80’s, so it’s kind of hard to imagine why there would be an obstruction in what looks to be very regular contours of breakwater type construction.
Whatever is going on there, I’ll be fishing it tomorrow morning!
Interesting. In such a case it’s possible that it’s been left on there because they have not gotten any information that says the obstruction is gone so it’s left. Better to be safe than sorry.
It could be the case that they were unable to take out whatever was there when they dredged the area. NOAA makes well over 1000 charts and they are only updated when someone gives them new data. Odd though, looking at the area it seems that in the LA area they would be updating the charts more frequently. Notice how the pier looks different on that chart compared to the photos.
Ok, so I asked my buddy what an Obstn is and was told it could be anything, pilings, rocks, anything that creates a hazard. I was also told that it could have been reported by someone that hit something in the water so the obstruction might not have been surveyed at all.
So that obstruction could be anything at all, and it may no longer exist but is kept on the chart until the area is surveyed and they know it’s no longer there.