By ODA Hawai’i Island Chapter Leader Sarah Milisen

Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA) volunteers left the harbor on a sold-out boat charter, courtesy of Kona Honu Divers (KHD), for ODA’s regularly scheduled ocean cleanup event.

Our destination was Keahole Point, the westernmost point of Hawai'i Island. The steep drop-offs attract fishermen looking for large pelagic fish. ODA and KHD have adopted all the dive sites along Keahole point, and, due to KHD’s confident and experienced Captain John Coladonato we’ve even managed to wiggle our  way into other areas, without moorings. We were thankful to have Captain John at the helm for this outing, too!

Armed with six new cleanup divers and over a dozen veterans, ODA volunteers were eager to remove debris on this lovely, calm day at Keahole Point. Our volunteer divers were: Juan Chacin, Erin Clement, Jaques Delorme, Marlene Demery, Phil Demery, John Gallagher, Tina Jensen, Charity Leary, Jeff Molder, Meghan Murray, Dot Norris, Larry Obrien, Bo Pardau (photography), Jamie Pardau, Buzz Samuelson, Barb Schnurr, and Tony White. Our boat crew included Ari Demery, Chris Funada, Sarah Milisen, and Jeff Milisen.

Our first targeted area had some fishing line, but it was mostly sprinkled with lots of lead, and it takes some truly expert eyes to find it buried in between rocks and covered in algae. Erin Clement is the “leading” (pun intended!) scavenger hunt winner – with well-trained eyes that seem to pull lead out of nowhere. Chris Funada, an excellent freediving instructor here on island, got in as well and braved the rocks for some shoreline trash removal –"netting" some cans, bait containers, food packaging, and even some remarkably worn clothing. Divers returned with heavy bags, and we were all quite happy to see less line tangling the reef and putting wildlife in danger. 

Dive Two took us a little farther south along the point where more of the NELHA pipes (deep and surface sea water intakes) are. Here, as expected, line and lures became tangled in construction material, left on the bottom of the pipe areas. Hooks, lines, and lures seemed to be everywhere. Even a poor giant pufferfish was tangled up with line, having ingested a discarded lure that was stuck on a nearby coral.

With all the lines, hooks, and lead in the water, wildlife is in peril! This is why we are driven to do what we do...return to sites over and over to make the habitat safe for the animals that inhabit it.

Divers immediately got to work and worked using their full hour of tank air. John's dive team found a gorgeous antler coral growing right at the end of one of the intake pipes –  and a large, braided rope tangled all around the beautiful coral head strangling it. Four divers got to work, very carefully untangling the line around the coral, as it looped around and around the coral.

This coral would have surely died had the rope not been pulled off – some of the swaying areas already had damage from rubbing on the rope, and some broken fragments were scattered along the bottom.

Nearby, Jacques found a mostly buried net, as well. Right after the big coral head was freed, divers got to work pulling the net out of the rubble and bagging it up! 

Divers hauled out a total of nearly TWO HUNDRED POUNDS of lead (Thanks Jacques for taking some home for recycling!) and another 75 pounds of misc. debris, including 2,000 feet of fishing line, a dozen lures, some construction screws, and the shoreline rubbish. 

WAY TO GO, TEAM! Thank you to all the amazing volunteers for your time and energy, to Bo Pardau with your EPIC and incredible ability to capture the action, and to Kona Honu Divers for their donated boat once again!

If you want to keep these cleanups going around the Islands of Hawai'i, your financial contribution makes you an important partner in this work!