By Maui Volunteer Dive Team Coordinator Lloyd Johnson
Our Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA) team on Maui chartered a dive boat from our friends at ProDiver for an ocean cleanup mission in the island’s coast waters on the 24th of February.
Our destination was La Perouse Bay named after the French explorer Captain Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse. In 1786, he surveyed and mapped this area that’s near the southern tip of the island. This site is where Maui's most recent volcanic activity happened, about 500 years ago!
Map of Maui Island, La Perouse Bay - see red pin
Volunteers were recruited from a Facebook divers’ group called Maui Mantas. We launched early from Kihei Boat Ramp and reached our intended target at La Perouse Bay about 10 miles south of the boat ramp. The pleasant ride to the site took about an hour.
La Perouse Bay credit Hawaii Guide
Eleven volunteers entered the water, one photographer (Jessica Albietz), two snorkelers (Bill Eppelette and Lynne Masters), and eight scuba divers (Allie Burgess, Meredith Callagan, Rae Duran, Mark McCutchen, Shanoa Miller, Joel Schlarb, Steve Winder, and me).
Coral head is engulfed in fishing line - here comes an ODA cleanup diver to the rescue!
We found a lot of fishing line totally entangled around coral heads. The team worked carefully and diligently to remove the line without hurting the coral. This is very tedious but rewarding work!
A spotted eel popped up to check out what we were doing. ODA has seen eels entangled in fishing line before, so we want to ensure this little guy’s habitat is clean and safe!
The result of our one-hour dive is that we brought up 163 pounds of fishing tackle. That lost and abandoned fishing equipment included 139 pounds of lead (fishing weights), 29 hooks, 6 lures, and 3 spark plugs. All of the divers' meticulous worked paid off with 1,500 feet of fishing line!
11 ODA Maui Crewmembers with Catch of the Day and two boat crewmen with "Pro Diver Two."
We all left feeling happy that the area was cleaner and safer for marine wildlife and honored to represent the ODA supporters who make these cleanups happen!
If you'd like to be one of the people onshore who cleans debris with us, please give your support to fuel these missions!
Yes! I want to fuel ocean cleanups
