1. Rear Admiral Gerd F. Glang, NOAA
United States of America
Meso-American and Caribbean Sea Hydrographic Commission (MACHC)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Naval Oceanographic Office
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency-Maritime Office
Rear Admiral Gerd F. Glang, NOAA
December 2015
(1) On behalf of the United States, and the three US agencies with primary hydrographic and charting responsibilities for the US, I’m pleased to provide a few highlights from our annual report to this Commission.

2. U.S. Hydrographic Leadership
NOAA
Director of the Office of Coast Survey, and U.S. National Hydrographer
Rear Admiral Gerd F. Glang
Office of Coast Survey, chief of the Marine Chart Division
John Nyberg
NGA
Chief Hydrographer
John Lowell
Director Maritime Safety Office
Captain Brian Conon
Navy
Commander Naval Meteorological and Oceanography Command (CNMOC)
and Hydrographer of the Navy and Navigator of the Navy
Rear Admiral Timothy Gallaudet
Deputy Hydrographer of the Navy
Stanley Harvey
(1)

3. The Office of Coast Survey delegates met with Cuba's National Office of Hydrography and Geodesy in Havana
Change Navigation
Coast Survey Engages Directly with Cuba to Increase Maritime Safety in the Florida Straights
In FY 15, as a result of the Obama Administration’s new policy to engage Cuba, we had one of the earliest opportunities to meet directly with its Cuban counterpart. The Florida Straights is one of most heavily maritime-trafficked areas in the world. Maritime trade, recreational boating and marine spatial planning require timely and robust hydrographic information that can be exchanged and updated routinely. In February 2015, the OCS and the U.S. State Department led one of the first U.S. Delegations to directly engage with Cuba -- focusing on hydrography in- and-around the Florida Straits.
OCS delegates met with Cuba’s National Office of Hydrography and Geodesy (ONHG) in Havana, Cuba where hydrographers and cartographers reviewed a suite of U.S. and Cuban nautical charts and publications. They outlined the opportunities for sustained collaboration for the purposes of improving navigation safety throughout the region. In July 2015, the U.S. State Department transmitted an invitation from Admiral Gerd F. Glang to the National Hydrographer of Cuba proposing a reciprocal visit by the ONHG to the United States in October to continue the hydrographic dialogue and exchange.

4. International Chart Adequacy Workshop
Be the Expert
International Chart Adequacy Workshop
NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey (OCS) and the University of New Hampshire trained hydrographers from 11 countries in procedures to evaluate the adequacy of their nautical charts. Trainers incorporated the latest technologies, such as data from the Maritime Automatic Identification System, which displays actual vessel traffic, as well as depth measurements deduced from satellite images. The workshop, held at NOAA headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, was the first of several U.S.-planned training activities that will foster standardized procedures to assess nautical charts worldwide.
Image:
Dr. Shachak Pe’eri, from the University of New Hampshire’s Joint Hydrographic Center, assists Limor Gur-Arie from Israel, during the nautical chart adequacy workshop.

5. Hydrographic Partnership
Coast Survey continues its decades of tradition in providing expertise and consultation to hydrographic offices from around the world. This month, two colleagues from Maritime and Navigation Haiti (SEMANAH) spent almost three weeks onboard Coast Survey research vessel Bay Hydro II, going through a discrete hydrographic project to gain insights into operational planning as well as survey data acquisition, processing, and quality control.
While our Haitian colleagues gained experience in NOAA protocols, they also assisted in a survey project requested by the Pilots' Association for the Bay & River Delaware. The pilots requested a hydrographic survey in the Delaware River, south of the Walt Whitman Bridge, where increasingly large container vessels need updated navigational charts to maneuver to their berths and within a nearby anchorage area.
Haiti's Matthieu Polyte and Frenold Cheristin joined Bay Hydro II's acting operator-in-charge Robert Mowery, NOAA LTJG Andrew Clos, and contractor Matthew Carter, as they acquired bathymetry and identified seafloor features and bottom characteristics to update NOAA chart (Philadelphia and Camden Waterfronts), and NOAA ENC® US5PA12M. They also reviewed pertinent sections of the United States Coast Pilot, Volume 3, Atlantic Coast: Sandy Hook NJ to Cape Henry VA for accuracy.
Coast Survey participates in various "capacity building projects," especially with nations in the Mesoamerica region, to increase hydrographic collaboration for navigation safety. This project is intended to impart information that will help strengthen Haiti's hydrography program.
Image: Haitians Hydrographers with LTJG Andrew Clos on Bay Hydro II vessel.

6. BookletChart A reduced-scale NGA nautical chart for small boaters
Complete, reduced scale nautical chart
Print at home for free
Convenient size
Latest Notice to Mariners Information provided
Formatted by NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey, the national chart maker

7. Joint Hydrographic Survey US Navy and Antigua
(ADOMS / Coast Guard / Port Authority)
St.Johns Harbor and Approaches

8. Thank you