By Founder and President Kurt Lieber
Earlier this month, ODA chartered a dive boat from our newest partner Aquatic Life Divers, to take a handful of our volunteers out for another underwater cleanup off the shores of Hawai’i Island, otherwise known as the Big Island.
We boarded the boat around 7am on Monday, June 10th, and headed south from the Honokohau Harbor to a site that our Big Island team has cleaned twice already: Deep Step. This is a site that Sarah Milisen (ODA’s Hawai’i Island Chapter Leader) knew of because of her knowledge of fishing sites along the coast.
In August of 2023, Sarah led a team of ODA divers here and they removed about 20,000 feet of fishing lines. ODA-Hawai’i went back on December 11th and retrieved another 18,000 feet of those hazardous lines as well as over 200 pounds of fishing tackle and lead weights. Even though they removed almost 40,000 feet of lines, they knew they had just scratched the surface.
To understand the magnitude of the project, I was looking forward to witnessing this fabled site for myself for the first time. It took us about 90 minutes to make the 30-mile boat ride.
ODA divers this day were: Bea Boyd, Tom Boyd, Sarah Milisen, Bo Pardau, Jamie Pardau, and me. This was Bea’s first time out with us! There were also six other divers from the dive company helping us out. And wow, did we ever need them!!
When we got to the site around 9am, Sarah jumped in to make sure we were in the correct location. She was about 100 feet away from the shore, which was nothing but a 30-foot-high wall of black lava. Even that close to shore the water was 100 feet deep. Talk about a deep step!
Because this is not a regular dive site there were no mooring balls to secure the boat to, so the captain kept the boat running as he positioned the boat close to where the divers had dropped.
The captain got the boat about 200 feet from the shore, and we all jumped in. I could immediately see that there was at least 200 feet of water beneath us. This was a really steep wall we were looking at! It had huge lava boulders scattered all over the place which provided all kinds of nooks and crannies for all the animals that called this place home.
Because of the deep drop-off, it provides easy access to the shore fishermen hoping to catch some large fish, like ulua or tuna. Because of the type of fishing gear they use, they leave a lot of the lines and lead weights behind. The amount of abandoned gear is just staggering.
We dropped down to about 80 feet and started pulling and cutting lines loose from the rocks and corals. It was a GREAT thing to see so many divers working as diligently as they could to safely remove the fishing lines. I didn’t see anyone who wasn’t in “nose to the grindstone” work mode.
One guy was so focused that he didn’t even want to take time to put his lines in one of the debris bags and just kept it bundled up around his fist. At one point his hand was the size of a volleyball!
After about 50 minutes everyone surfaced and climbed aboard the boat. We took an 80-minute surface interval (break) and then headed down again. Everyone was laser-focused on the task at hand and the debris bags were filling up more quickly than on the first dive.
Here's a photo of a dynamic couple -- Jamie and Bo Pardau. They are a neat couple and we're so thankful they're part of our Big Island crew. Bo does an excellent job of documenting our work with still photographs; we hope you're enjoying them here and be sure to look at the complete Photo Gallery below!
While we're talking about talented documentarians...We are so fortunate to have Tom Boyd as a regular member of our crew. He shoots amazing underwater video for us.
Check out this video and the diverse fish and see turtles!
Editor's Note: Our Founder and President Kurt Lieber doesn't get to dive too often anymore, so he was happy to have the opportunity to dive in with the gang and help clean this beleagured site!
Here you can see our SCUBA dive cleanup crew heading towards the surface with their bags full and hands full of hazardous debris.
Fifty minutes later we were all back on the boat. Once the dive gear was stowed, we motored north back to the harbor with smiles of contentment all around.
Back at the harbor, we unloaded the buckets and bags full of debris. In all we removed about 125 pounds of fishing lines, which is equal to about 11,000 feet of line. We also collected 25 pounds of lead weights and 18 fishhooks in the tangles of fishing line.
As I was reviewing all the great pictures that Bo took, as well as the stunning video that Tom captured, I was thinking about how easy it would be for a sea turtle to become entangled in all that mess of lines. I’ve seen turtles serenely munching on all the moss and algae that grow on the rocks. The fishing line is right there… ready to snag an unsuspecting critter.
I hope you feel like we do: We all felt better and relieved that we made that area a little safer for our friends in the sea!
This happens only with your help – we appreciate our onshore support crew!