By Kay Cooper, ODA North Hawai’i Island Volunteer Coordinator
Kona has had some rough weather this year, particularly last month with the worst flooding people have seen in over twenty years.
Hawai'i Island is shaped by steep, volcanic terrain, and when it rains, natural flooding zones and temporary rivers reveal themselves.
Most of these around Kailua Kona run straight out into Kailua Bay, where Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA) has been hard at work with cleanups for many years. ODA has tackled monstrous tire dumping grounds in Kailua Bay, as well as partnering for years to perform regular cleanups around Kailua Pier—but it seems we just aren't able to keep up at this Pier site in particular.
ODA has several sites we "maintain" in terms of collecting debris: cleanups are conducted frequently enough that we aren't seeing lots of old stuff or any significant accumulation of new debris—we’re just picking up what has settled in the area since the most recent cleanup. However, here, it’s different.
We had over 40 volunteers for this event on Easter weekend (Saturday, April 4th) with about half as divers and the other half as topside volunteers.
MAHALO TO ALL OUR VOLUNTEERS: Preslee Alonso, Jim Caldwell, Juan Chacin, Kerry Edwards, Jeremy Evans, Suzzette Franklin, Lucas and Violette Fuhrman, Adam, Henry, John and Michael Gallagher, Stacy Garrett, Susan and Wayne Haydon, Maura Hennesy, Rafaella Ignetti, Katelynn Kenworthy, Alexandra Lachowicz, Jeff and Teri Leicher, Tanya Lemons, Joe Lillie, Susan Lunday, Jack Mead, Sarah Milisen, Adrian Murphy, Sage Nicholson, Bo and Jamie Pardau, Jeff and Olivia Pollard, Mikena Shay, Erik Stockdale, Harvey Suprenant, Neng Sutherland, Jack Sutter, Joanne Tabor, Dawn Thibudeau, and Tony White.
This is an example of the challenge our divers had--to carefully disentangle fishing line from coral heads!
There were several new volunteers along with our steadfast veterans who received our dive briefing. Divers were allotted 70-ish minutes underwater to maximize their haul—and since it was only about 15-feet deep, most of our divers worked for well over an hour—coming up to switch their full bags with the topside volunteers and get a fresh bag to continue cleaning.
Divers collected lots of bottles, cans, and clothing this time, as well as fishing line, fishing line, and more fishing line! We found a few Vapes (a new thing in the last decade), golf balls, sunglasses, etc., but the mess that all divers came up talking about was HOW MUCH LINE was down there, and how much they couldn't pick up. Almost all our regular ODA divers personally reported to me that there is still quite a lot of line down there.
In just under an hour and a half, divers hauled up 25 pounds total of lead; 7 sets of sunglasses; a silver necklace; 3 cellphones; 40-50 bottles and cans; a large rubber mat and rubber pipe; a dozen gold balls; and several thousand feet of fishing line!
ODA Crew with the "Catch of the Day"!
Easter ODA volunteers also were "treated" to an underwater easter egg hunt! Katelynn and Preslee from Jack's Diving Locker boiled and numbered some eggs and hid them around our cleanup area. Divers who found them on their cleanup carefully pocketed them, and the eggs were traded in for prizes! Prizes were donated from our two partners Jack's Diving Locker and Body Glove. What a nice Easter surprise!
We also thank Body Glove who brought breakfast pastries AND sandwiches for the volunteers hard at work. What an incredible community!
We all agreed we need quarterly cleanups at this site until maintenance dives can be achieved—so be on the lookout for July and September Pier Cleanups!
If you want to be part of this kind of fun and satisfying ocean cleanup effort, check out our Volunteer Page.
