About Nautical Nick
The person, the name, the mission, and the model behind the Visibility Report.
The Founder
Nicholas Meyers is the developer behind the Nautical Nick Visibility Report. Nick is a spearfisherman and diver from San Diego with a degree in biology. His passion for marine biology creates a different perspective when it comes to spearfishing, which has created the ecosystem-based organizational structure present on the website.
The Name
The name Nautical Nick Visibility Report comes from the YouTube channel that this website is affiliated with: Nautical Nick. It’s a small spearfishing channel that creates entertaining spearfishing education videos, with an emphasis on ecosystem biology. Video production took a hiatus while this website was under development, but it’s expected to resume soon.
Visit the channel on YouTube →
The Mission
All spearos and divers know the pain of thinking it’s going to be a good day in the ocean, spending hours packing and preparing, then driving to the beach and parking, then hauling the gear to the water, only to find out that the sea is too murky and choppy to do anything. It’s such an enormous waste of time, energy, and money. That’s why Nautical Nick decided to make a Visibility Report — to save everyone (including himself) from wasting their time and money on a murky day. In the process of making that tool, a dozen other tools were created to make the website even more useful.
The Model
The way a visibility measurement is accurately produced is with the algorithm made by Nautical Nick. It’s been trained on months of ocean conditions data, and calibrated with real boots-on-the-ground dive reports. The data used in the algorithm is pulled from over a dozen sources, but the primary sources used are NASA’s chlorophyll reading satellites. They detect the concentration of chlorophyll in the ocean at any given coordinate, updated several times each day. The lower the concentration of chlorophyll, the better the visibility tends to be. Other factors influence the water clarity, but the algorithm takes those factors into account.
The Scope
The goal is to cover most of the popular dive and spearfishing locations in the United States. However, this project is being created by just one man, so it will be done bit by bit. New features will also roll out as time goes on, and eventually this project will evolve into an incredibly powerful and useful tool for spearos and divers. Any and all feedback is welcome from the community. You can fill out report forms here.