Color, temperature, salinity, current, and deep water.
SST, Blue Water, salinity, current speed and direction, eddy edges, altimetry, and 100-meter temperature all help explain what kind of water is offshore.
First Mate — Offshore intelligence
See where the Gulf changes.
Breaks, edges, current, structure — one working Gulf map, refreshed through the day.
Start here
- Open the map.Start with today's Gulf water, not a static screenshot.
- Read the edge.Compare color, temperature, salinity, current, history, and structure.
- Plan the run.Use measured water, freshness, and map context to make your own call.
Free for 30 days, no credit card. Then $129.99 a year — less than a tank of fuel.
Less than a tank of fuel for a season of measured water. Charter and routing services read this water for thousands a year; First Mate puts it on your phone before you leave the dock.
Confidence: high · Sources: buoy, wind model, current
Everything in the stack
One place for the water, the structure, and the timing.
Bottom, rigs, FADs, drillships, and named Gulf features.
Depth contours, bathymetry, BOEM platforms, FADs, drillships, canyons, humps, and named offshore structure give the water a real fishing reference.
Moon phase, solunar windows, and water history.
Major and minor feeding windows do not replace water reading, but they help frame when a good edge may be worth paying attention to.
Home-port distance, bearings, buoys, wind, and seas.
The map keeps planning practical with distance from port, nearest buoy context, marine forecast zones, and trip feedback.
Blue Water workflow
Start from the home port, then read the stack.
Blue Water Read
Find the clean-water edge.
From Orange Beach, scan from the green shelf water toward the offshore blue-water edge. Then compare that edge against fishable depth, thermal breaks, salinity, current push, and named structure like the Nipple, Elbow, Spur, and Steps.
SST Read
Check whether color has temperature behind it.
A color edge is more useful when the surface-temperature pattern supports it. Use SST and Time Lapse to see whether the break is real water or just a one-pass picture.
Salinity Read
Separate offshore water from mixed water.
Salinity helps identify clean offshore water, transition water, and river-influenced water. It is a water-mass check, not a bite answer.
Current / Structure Read
Work the edge where water moves.
Compare the edge against current and known Gulf structure: Nipple, Elbow, Spur, Steps, Petronius, Ram Powell, Horn Mountain, Devil's Tower, and Mississippi Canyon when they are in range of the water you are reading.
Ocean data, explained plainly
The map is built around water behavior.
Bait moves with the water. Pelagic fish respond to water masses, fronts, eddies, oxygen, temperature, prey, and current. No single map layer answers the whole question.
The useful read is the stack: where color, temperature, salinity, current, depth, history, and structure agree. That is where the water deserves a closer look.
First Mate turns those layers into a touch-friendly Gulf map. Pinch, zoom, adjust transparency, and tap the water for values, source timing, and coverage notes.
Time Lapse is the time view for seeing whether a feature held, moved, or vanished across Currents, SST, Salinity, and Blue Water.
Reading the water
Educational first. Product second.
Color
Blue Water helps separate blue offshore water from greener productive water. Brown or turbid water needs additional optical signals, so the map should not pretend one layer sees everything.
SST
SST helps find real surface-temperature breaks. The strongest reads are breaks that line up with current, color, salinity, structure, or several days of water history.
Water Mass
Salinity separates clean offshore water from mixed transition and river-influenced water. It is context for reading the Gulf, not a direct catch prediction.
Movement
Currents and tracked water signals show where edges have moved, held, or broken apart. That is the raw material for a future daily read.
What you see on the map
The layers that explain the water.
01
Base Layers
The foundation: structure, bottom, depth, and current direction.
Bottom Relief & Depth Contours
Find shelf breaks, canyon edges, humps, drop-offs, and bottom changes where current and bait can stack.
Platforms & Structure
Rigs, drillships, platforms, and FADs across the Gulf with real names and positions for offshore reference.
Current Arrows
See which way the water is moving. Faster currents draw stronger, so rips and moving edges are easier to spot.
02
Fishing Intelligence Layers
The core offshore signals for reading color, temperature, water mass, and movement.
SST
Find surface temperature breaks and compare them against color, current, and water history.
Blue Water
Read the blue-water color transition and inspect whether the edge is sharp, fishable, and current.
Salinity
Spot clean offshore water, mixed transition water, and river-influenced water-mass boundaries.
Subsurface (100m)
Check what the water column looks like below the surface, not just what the satellite sees at the top.
Eddy Edges
See moving Gulf water, Loop Current edges, and eddy structure that can shape where water masses meet.
Currents
Find faster water, shear zones, and convergence areas that can shape rips and weed lines.
Sargassum
Inspect weed lines and floating mats alongside current, color, and depth so weed is read as part of the water setup.
Signal Agreement
Highlight areas where independent signals line up instead of relying on one layer alone.
03
New Working Views
Ways to track what the water is doing over time.
Time Lapse
Scrub 48 hours, 3 days, or 7 days for currents, SST, Salinity, and Blue Water to see whether features held or moved.
Water Signals
Track map points and footprints for detected edges, fronts, and supported features before turning them into written reads.
Layer Receipts
Check freshness, coverage, and data notes so incomplete or older data does not look newer than it is.
04
Planning & Operations
Context that helps turn a water read into a practical offshore plan.
Moon & Solunar
Moon phase plus major and minor feeding windows for timing context alongside the water read.
Home-Port Range
Distance and bearing from your selected port so the same edge is read from Orange Beach, Venice, Destin, or anywhere else.
Buoys, Wind & Seas
Nearest buoy, wind, seas, and marine forecast zone context at the point you tap on the map.
Precision Intel
Opt-in sharing of approximate fishing areas: off unless you turn it on, rounded before it leaves the boat, and deletable any time. Exact tracks are never sold.
Trip Feedback
Captain water-color, sea-state, catch, and notes feedback so future reads can be checked against what happened offshore.
Built for Gulf captains
Not a magic fish finder.
Measured water first.
Toggle layers, adjust transparency, zoom into the water, and tap points for values, age, coverage, and map notes.
Features over pretty pictures.
Color, temperature, salinity, current, depth, weed, and structure are brought together because the edge matters more than a single beautiful layer.
History changes the read.
Time Lapse and Water Signals help separate a one-frame feature from an edge that has held, drifted, or stacked with other layers.
Science without the black box
The educational guide explains what each layer can and cannot say.
Water color, temperature, salinity, currents, weed, and structure all matter, but the map still has limits. The guide keeps the science practical and avoids overstating what a chart can prove.
Read the guideWhat that means in the app
- Layer names use fishing language, not provider jargon.
- Map details explain what each layer shows and where its limits are.
- Coverage and freshness are surfaced when the data is incomplete.
- Water Signals stay as data points before they become a written daily read.
Pricing
Free for 30 days. No credit card.
Then $129.99 a year. The full map — temperature, color, salinity, current, structure, and water history — refreshed daily and built for the northern Gulf. One simple annual price, no tiers.