By Oahu Dive Team Coordinator Glenn Roberts

Please visit the photo gallery below to see the rest of the story!

ODA-Hawai’i had a cleanup last Sunday with our partner Island Divers Hawai’i (IDH). We were all happy to be together again, doing what we love to do: Cleaning our beautiful coastal waters of ocean debris. Thanks to my wife Anke for pulling this together!

This day our volunteers were: Ed Sisino, Chris Denton, Rose Zhang, David Martin, Marjorie Zensen, Mark England, and me. Marjorie snapped the photos – thank you! The captain of the vessel Sea Fox was Matt Negaard and Tim Hollandsworth provided critical topside support. We also had a dive master safety diver from IDH.

We motored out to our usual spot at Spitting Caves near China Walls. We were making good on our commitment to continually return to this site because it constantly gets pelted with lost fishing gear as the cliffs above the water are a popular recreational fishing site. If you enlarge the photo below (by clicking on the photo), you'll be able to see the people on the cliffs; they even have tents to enable them to stay out there longer!

We were hoping to hit an area further down the cliff called Fish Camp, just before Hanauma Bay, but the waves grew as we headed east. As soon as we saw the six-foot surf crashing against the wall, we knew it wouldn’t be safe for the divers.

Our crew was eager to see what had accumulated at this popular fishing site, so they all plunged in and went to work.  We have a little video to share with you so you can really experience what it's like cleaning this site:

We have lots of cool underwater shots in the photo gallery below so be sure to browse through!

We saw some cleverly disguised wildlife, like this fish:

And this snake:

I estimate we hauled out 75 pounds of debris and 750 yards of fishing line. As you can see in the photos we removed plenty of hooks and a few spark plugs, lures, and bottles (no critters inside), too.

It was a successful event with a small core group of volunteer divers. Thanks to all of you for caring for our vital oceans!

Opportunity to Help with Cleanup

If you’re interested in helping clean Oahu’s waters, we’d love to hear from you! Please email us at volunteer@oceandefenders.org