Chart Question

[Rainman]

I've been looking at the NOAA nautical chart 11405 for our area and I also referenced Chart 1 which indicates what the different symbols mean. On Chart 11405 as you go from the St. Marks Bird rack east towards the Aucilla there is a submerged pile, then almost a line of items labeled Pile PA. PA stands for Position Approximate, but what does Pile stand for? I searched through Chart 1 but could not seem to find a definition for Pile. Any help? rocks, rubble, a post, a stake? Any type of pile...? I'm not looking for someone to tell me exactly what each of these piles are, I just would like a general idea of what to expect when I see the term Pile on the chart.

[Tom Keels]

A Piling. A post.

[willfish]

It's been awhile since I looked at that chart, but heading east those submerged piles were posts from the old bird guano racks that where all over the flats. I still see some of them on extremely low tides, but most of the have rotted away.

[Jumptrout51]

They have replaced the original creosote poles(piles) with pvc buoys marking the SMNWR boundary.
Yes, some of them were bird poop post.
Perhaps they should be re-built. The fishing was really good around them.

[Rainman]

Thank you! The chart is a cool tool and better when I searched the forum and figured out how to download and use the viewer to show gps numbers. I'll be spending quite a bit of time checking them over.

[Charles]

Back during WWII, when Tallahassee Regional Airport was still Dale Mabry Field and the Army had a fighter pilot training school there, there was a bombing range east of the lighthouse. The bird racks were targets for the student pilots. What, if anything, remains of those are a lot of the "Piles" and "Platform (ruins)" you see on the chart. Also the grassless sand holes in the flats out there which are a great for finding scallops in season are still known as the "old bomb craters". These craters are also structure to a fish and the edges of the craters are a great place to find fish lying in ambush.

When the posts marking the refuge border were replaced they didn't get them all. Some of the old ones are still there. Broken off just below the surface of the water when the tide is right.