Merconi — marine life and ocean exploration

Merconi is AnchorQueen's exploration mode: a chart tuned to the living sea

— dive sites, marine-life sightings, ocean conditions, and fishing activity.

What changes

When you enter Merconi:

Your base map is left alone. Merconi turns on the exploration layers

over whatever chart style you were already using — it does not force a

style of its own. (If you want the teal Reverse · Merconi Reef

Guardian depth palette, pick it yourself; see [Reef Guardian

palette](#reef-guardian).)

All exploration layers turn on automatically — marine life, dive

sites, Global Fishing Watch, and ocean data are live the moment you

enter the tab, whichever sub-mode you're in. When you leave Merconi

they all switch off again, so no exploration pins or heatmaps linger

on your other charts.

The bottom pill bar becomes the Merconi sub-mode bar:

Diving — Discover — Fishing — three lenses on the same

fully-loaded chart.

The floating legend panels these layers open (Marine Life, Dive Sites,

Fishing Activity, Ocean Data) share the standard chart panel card — drag the

header to move, drag the bottom-right grip to resize, minimize (–) or close

(✕) from the header — see the chart page.

Diving

The diver-facing lens — use it when you are scouting a snorkel spot or

planning a dive day. Dive sites and marine-life pins are the stars

here (they are on in every sub-mode, like all exploration layers).

Tap a marine-life pin to open the species detail sheet: a photo

and short description (from Wikipedia), the common and scientific names,

an IUCN conservation badge where known, taxonomy, the observation record,

and a Resources section with Wikipedia, FishBase, and WoRMS

links that open inside the app (no bounce out to Safari). See

[where this data comes from](#technical-engine).

In the Marine Life legend panel, each row shows a small species

thumbnail. Use the target button on a row to fly the chart to that

sighting (zoomed in and centred); the fish button opens its FishBase

page in-app. Tap the row itself to open the full detail sheet.

Every sighting is its own pin. Marine-life pins never collapse into

a numbered group bubble. When a survey station reports many species at

the same coordinates, the pins fan out in a small spiral around the

spot (a few hundred metres at most) so each one stays tappable — the

detail sheet always shows the record's true coordinates.

Tap a dive site to open its detail sheet. Depending on what the

source has, you'll see:

Conditions — depth range, entry type (shore / boat), visibility,

water temperature, and current strength.

Contact (for dive centres) — operator name, phone, email, opening

hours, and a website link.

Save as Waypoint to drop the site into your waypoint list, plus a

Captain's Mark pin toggle.

Dive sites come from OpenStreetMap, so coverage and detail vary by

region — a quiet spot may have only a name and coordinates.

Discover (default)

The Merconi default. Discover centres on ocean-data points — sea

conditions sampled across the chart — alongside the always-on article

capsule for underwater geography and biodiversity.

Tap an article pin to read the entry inline.

Tap an ocean-data point to read the conditions at that spot. Ocean grids

come from the Copernicus Marine Service — see [where this data comes

from](#technical-engine).

Fishing

Overlays a Global Fishing Watch effort heatmap on top of your chart.

The heatmap is shown only while the Fishing lens is selected — pick a

different Merconi lens (Diving / Discover) or leave the tab and it hides

automatically. There is no separate layer switch for it in Layer Control;

selecting the Fishing pill is the switch.

A heatmap of recent commercial fishing effort — brighter cells mean

more fishing hours.

Time-window filter at the panel header: Live · 7D · 30D · 90D ·

6M · 1Y. This sets how far back the effort is summed — it is not a

vessel-type filter.

Per-flag breakdown below the map: effort is grouped by flag state

(the vessel's country) with an hours-and-vessels bar chart, ranked by

fishing hours. You can recolour any flag's cells.

Tiles render best between roughly zoom 2 and zoom 12; the panel offers a

one-tap zoom-to-tiles when you're outside that range. Opening the Merconi

tab keeps your current chart view — it never zooms the camera out on you.

Use this to avoid congested fishing areas, or to learn where boats

are working.

> The fishing overlay needs a free Global Fishing Watch API token to

> be configured in the app. Without one, the panel shows an "API Key

> Required" state and no heatmap — see [If something goes

wrong](#if-something-goes-wrong).

--

Your own log — catches and berths

Merconi isn't only other people's data. Press and hold anywhere on the

chart in Merconi and the command fan offers two entries of your own:

Log Catch — the fish you landed, pinned to where you landed it.

Berth Photo — what a mooring, quay, or berth actually looked like,

so next season you know which one to take.

Both open the same short form:

Photos — tap Add Photos and pick up to 12 at once from your

library. They are downscaled and stored on the device.

A short title — the species for a catch, the berth's name for a

berth. Optional.

A note — anything you want to remember. Optional.

Position and time are filled in for you from the spot you pressed.

Save and the entry drops on the chart as a small tinted pin — amber with

a fish for a catch, blue with a boat for a berth. A pin carrying more

than one photo shows a count badge. Tap it to open the entry: swipe through

the photo gallery, read the note, or use the ⋯ menu to Edit the

title and note or Delete it. The + in the entry's header adds more

photos later.

> These entries stay on your device. Nothing is uploaded, shared, or

synced — deleting an entry removes its photos from the device too.

--

Where Merconi's data comes from

Merconi's exploration layers are live, networked services — it queries

public marine databases on demand and caches the results per region to

disk so a spot you've already viewed still loads when you're offline. None

of these layers is bundled or pre-computed on the device; an empty layer

usually means no network or no records for that area, not a bug.

Marine life — OBIS + WoRMS

OBIS (Ocean Biodiversity Information System) is the source for

species occurrence pins. AnchorQueen queries the live OBIS web API for

records inside the visible region (no account needed) and caches each

region to disk. Tapping a pin shows the species, where and when it was

recorded, and a link to the source record.

WoRMS (World Register of Marine Species) enriches each species:

common (vernacular) names in many languages, an IUCN Red List

conservation badge where one exists, a rough maximum size, an

alien/invasive flag, and — for fish — a link to its FishBase page.

Fishing effort — Global Fishing Watch

The Fishing sub-mode overlays a commercial fishing-effort heatmap from

Global Fishing Watch (GFW), rendered as raster (PNG) tiles streamed

straight onto the chart — not vector contours drawn on the device. Effort

is summed over the time window you choose and broken down by the vessel's

flag state (country). This layer requires a free GFW API token to

be configured; without one it stays empty and the panel shows an "API Key

Required" notice.

Ocean conditions — Copernicus Marine Service

Discover's ocean-data layer streams high-resolution ocean grids from the

Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS), fetched on demand for the visible

area. The underlying model publishes 6-hourly time steps (not minute-

by-minute), so values update on that cadence. Layers include sea surface

temperature, currents (speed and direction), and related fields useful for

drift diving and route planning.

--

Step-by-Step Exploration Guidance

Planning a Dive Day

Check the Sea State: Open the Meteo tab to confirm significant wave height is under your safety margin and wind is offshore.

Switch to Diving: Tap Diving on the Merconi sub-mode bar — dive sites and marine-life pins are already live on the chart. For a high-contrast bathymetric look, optionally pick the Reverse · Merconi Reef Guardian depth palette yourself in the Chart Layers panel — Merconi never switches it for you.

Locate Sites: Tap a dive site icon to view its conditions (depth range, entry, visibility, water temp, current) and any dive-centre contact details.

Check Biodiversity: Tap nearby marine-life pins to see which species have been recorded at those coordinates.

Avoiding Active Fishing Zones

Switch to Fishing: Change the sub-mode to Fishing (a GFW token must be configured — see [If something goes wrong](#if-something-goes-wrong)).

Pick a Time Window: Use the header chips — Live · 7D · 30D · 90D · 6M · 1Y — to set how far back effort is summed. A longer window reveals persistent hotspots; Live shows only the most recent activity.

Read the Heatmap: Look for the brightest cells — those are the busiest fishing areas to steer clear of — and check the per-flag breakdown below the map to see which countries' fleets are working there.

Reef Guardian palette

Reef Guardian is a teal-and-cyan depth palette, not a base map and

not something Merconi turns on for you. If you want it, open the [Chart

Layers panel](chart.html#layers) and choose Reverse · Merconi Reef

Guardian under the depth-palette picker. It pairs the inverted-luminance

soundings with bright shallow water, which reads well over coastal dive

areas. Because it's a normal palette choice, it sticks until you change it

back — in any tab, not just Merconi.

Tips

Merconi pairs well with the Meteo tab — ocean conditions

and a clear sea state make a real difference for diving or fishing.

Marine-life data is community-sourced and not exhaustive — treat it as a

curious starting point, not a guarantee.

If something goes wrong

Fishing layer shows "API Key Required" and no heatmap — Global

Fishing Watch needs a free API token configured in the app. Until

one is added, the effort layer can't load; register at

globalfishingwatch.org to obtain a token.

Fishing heatmap is empty (token present) — try a longer time window

(7D / 30D), check you're between roughly zoom 2 and 12 (use the panel's

zoom-to-tiles button), and confirm you have a network connection — the

tiles stream live.

No marine-life or ocean-data layers appear — these are live

services. With no network connection, regions you haven't visited

before come back empty; a region you've already loaded is served from

the on-device cache. Move on or zoom back to a cached area.

Pins are scarce in a region — OBIS coverage and OpenStreetMap dive

sites are sparser in some areas; zoom out for context.