About
Why I started SeaDepth
I’m Buster Hawthorne, founder of SeaDepth Charts. In 2016, I began deep-dropping and daytime swordfishing out of Surfside, Texas. Being colorblind made traditional shaded-relief charts difficult for me to interpret. I often struggled to tell a peak from a depression, and clear depth readings were missing where I needed them most.
After running 80–100 miles offshore to find that a promising feature wasn’t what I expected, I started building my own charts. I sourced contour data and turned it into maps I could use on an iPad. Those first charts covered just nine square miles at a time, but they helped me understand the bottom more clearly.
Over the years, I refined the contours, added shaded relief, and developed custom color bands to make subtle bottom changes easier to read. That work became SeaDepth Charts.
Today, SeaDepth combines detailed, labeled contours with Bank Zoom charts, SeaDrift drift tests, and bottom composition overlays in supported areas. The goal remains personal: build the charts I wanted for my own time offshore and help other anglers plan their next drop with greater confidence.
Buster Hawthorne
Founder, SeaDepth Charts