By ODA Dive Team Coordinator, Dive Master, and Advisory Board Member Gary Liebmann
Sunday, September 8th was the perfect day for an Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA) clean-up! The weather was cooperating with sunny conditions, light winds, high tide, and a full manifest of volunteers, eager to help make an impact on the environment!
Everybody began to arrive at the Maunalua Bay boat launch around 1 pm on Sunday. We were lucky enough to have four new volunteers this time around: Christopher Ashmore, Ray Boland, Jackie Boland, and Alan Buckrucker! I was very interested to learn that Ray Boland happens to be a Research Biologist and Unit Dive Supervisor at NOAA. We were humbled and thankful to have him aboard with us!
Rounding out the crew with our seasoned divers were: Henry Bennet, Crystal Gray, Bill Hockensmith, Jerritt Larson, Abby Liebmann, Temple Liebmann, Dan Okamura, Chad Schmidt, Ed Sisino, and Bailey Young. That’s an impressive roster!
While we were awaiting the vessel Na Makana to pick us up for our trip, I thought it would be a good idea to utilize this time to give the new volunteers a dive brief along with some guidelines on what to expect and what we are trying to achieve.
Shortly after the dive brief and introductions, the Na Makana pulled up at the launch with Captain Garrett Prinslow at the helm, ready to take us out for some much-awaited ocean rehabilitation.
As we began to make way and head out, I re-briefed the dive plan with the entire crew and told them that we were hoping to make it out to Fish Camp this time around. The last few months the weather hadn’t been cooperating, but things were looking pretty good today.
Our expert Captain Garrett confirmed my suspicions, and we decided that we would be able to make it around the corner at Portlock and head out to Fish Camp.
After a short 20-minute ride out, we arrived at our destination. We were lucky enough to have the help of three deck crew members: Temple Liebmann, Aby Liebmann and Jaxon Bergamo. They helped everybody with their gear so we could get all 13 divers in the water at the same time, eliminating the need to make a second pass.
After we splashed and made our decent, I was very pleased to notice that the current wasn’t very strong, and the visibility was decent.
This spot has two elevations for cleaning. The bottom where we placed two buckets was at about 85 feet, and a ledge on the wall, which wall was at about 50 feet, this is where we placed the third bucket.
We didn’t have to look long to get started; there was fishing line and lead everywhere! Within about 15 minutes the buckets were starting to fill up.
Because of the depth, we had to move quickly. Air consumption was one concern, but we also had to pay attention to our No Decompression Limit (NDL); 85 feet is no shallow dive, especially when you are exerting yourself. Luckily most of our more experienced were working deep and a lot of our other divers were working on the ledge at about 50 feet.
At about 25 minutes into the dive, I noticed that my NDL level was getting low, and the buckets were bursting so I made the decision to call the dive.
We all headed back to the surface.
As we started to finish up and inflate the lift bags (which “float” the buckets to the surface), I noticed that our heaviest bucket, on the ledge, was not floating, we needed more lifting power!
At this point we had to temporarily leave this bucket and get the divers and the remaining two buckets back to the boat.
After everyone made it back up on the Na Makana, thanks to the help of our amazing crew, I spoke with one of our more seasoned volunteers, Ed Sisino, and asked him if he would be up to a quick bounce dive to try to get that last bucket up before we made our way back.
It never takes too much to persuade Ed into another dive, and with the captain’s blessing, we swung back around to the original drop-down site and made one more attempt to retrieve the bucket.
With pinpoint accuracy, Captain Garrett dropped us directly over our target, and we quickly made it back to the ledge and connected two more bags to the bucket; within nine minutes we were back on board, it took three volunteers to pull the bucket on the platform of the boat!
We started the short trip back with full buckets, an amazing team of environmentally aware likeminded friends, all while being escorted by a friendly pod of spinner dolphins. It doesn’t get much better than that!
Once back at the boat launch, we emptied our collection of rubbish onto a tarp, while Temple, our topside photographer, was documenting our spoils. We estimate somewhere between five and six hundred yards of line. The total weight of the three buckets came to a whopping 248 pounds!!!
Another great Sunday for ODA and the waters around Oahu!
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