By Kay Cooper, ODA North Hawai’i Island Volunteer Coordinator
Our Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA) ocean conservation army was at it again with a very successful cleanup of our ocean and shores this past weekend on the Big Island of Hawai’i!
On Sunday, September 29, 2024, ODA's partner, Jacks Diving Locker, organized a large cleanup for the Kailua-Kona Pier, a spot ODA tries to clean at least once per year. Our other partner organization, Body Glove, was also there and helped with organization, safety, and supplying a large assortment of incredible snacks for everyone involved!
Work began for the organizers of the event around 8:00 in the morning. We started to hang the banners, set up the table with snacks, free sticker giveaways, water, and shade for our divers to set up their gear. We also had several sets of spare gloves, cutting tools, rubbish bags, and several lift bags in case we found larger items. Volunteers were informed to check in around 8:30am and the briefing began shortly after 9:00am! Safety was the priority of the briefing as this is a very busy tourist, business, and public swimming/kayaking area, as well as an active boat channel for some companies as well. Each time a cleanup is organized, not only do we get our long-time volunteers that come, but lots of new volunteers as well! I discussed what to leave in the ocean and what to remove. I also instructed the volunteers how to safely remove rubbish, how to use lift bags and who would be carrying them, what do to if you heard boats, and buddy safety as well.
With over 40 volunteers total (wow!) made up of around 30 divers,3-4 snorkelers, and around 10 shore support, we all began setting up gear, getting our rubbish bags, locating our partners, and off to work we went! Teri, from Jacks Diving Locker, was a snorkeler support, watching out for the divers below and boats coming in as they were working close to the pier wall to around 25 feet away. Mikena, from Body Glove, was dry shore support looking for bubbles and taking pictures of the process as it was happening!
As for myself, Kay, ODA's Big Island Northern Coordinator, I was also dry shore support going from each entry location around the pier directing divers, snorkelers and helping to exchange full bags for empty ones. Our divers broke up into two main groups: one group would enter the pier from the south beach while the other entered from the north beach. They each cleaned along the wall and under some boats moored up and met in the middle at the end of the pier where they turned around and worked their way back halfway through the dive! The first full bag of rubbish was ready to be exchanged only five minutes into the dive! WAY TO GO!
Our shore support volunteers each wore gloves and were following the bubbles ready to go with an empty bag when one would need to be exchanged. If there were no bags available, they would run the full ones back to home location, empty them over the large tarp and run them back! Everyone was working so hard and did wonderfully as a team! Several boats would make their way into the pier as our divers were below but their safety was never in question with our wonderful snorkel support and shore support keeping constant communication with the boats and the divers below.
ODA Ocean Cleanup Volunteers wit their "Catch of the Day"
As time was coming to an end, a maximum of one hour dive time, other shore support folks and I went back to the tarp and started to sort through all the rubbish! We began cutting lures from hooks and lead off the line, plastics, metals, cans, glasses, everything had its own place. Even a automobile tire was removed from our ocean! With an estimated four-thousand feet of fishing line, around one-thousand feet of line/rope used for boats or at the pier for tires, these divers bags got heavy quickly!
We also found:
- Over 60 intact glass bottles and many glass fragments,
- Several articles of clothing including a hat,
- A large piece of turf/fake grass,
- 2 spark plugs, 4 electronic cigarettes,
- 1 cell phone and phone cover,
- Several batteries,
- An estimated 5 pounds of lead fishing weights,
- So many fishing hooks,
- 10 large construction metal bars/pipes,
- 3 large and very heavy pieces of chain,
- More than 20 aluminum cans,
- Multiple plastic food containers and lids,
- Several plastic water bottles,
- An entire fishing reel assembly with line in the spool,
- An entire plastic fishing line spool full of line,
- 3 small buoys/floats,
- A large and very heavy wheel hub off a vehicle,
- Several large bolts with nuts,
- A couple of lighters,
- A few hair ties,
- A large orange plastic item,
- And many more metal, plastic, and ceramic fragments.
As the items were being sorted, our team of wonderful ocean conservationists were carefully looking for critters needing to be returned to the ocean. After a very successful one-hour dive, I gathered everyone together to help sort the remaining rubbish and get ready for our post dive photo!
This cleanup would not have been possible without our incredible partners and event organizers who worked with me: Teri and Mikena! We had amazing crew help as well Katelyn and Adam from Jack’s Diving Locker, and ODA volunteer Brian Sward, and an even more important shout out to our volunteer army! Everyone continues to make us all so proud and honored to be a part of such incredible positive change we are trying to make for our 'Aina (land) and Kai (ocean)!
Please keep your eyes and ears open for our new events in the future! Mahalo! Mahalo team!
Send an email to volunteer@oceandefenders.org if you'd like to be included next time - thank you.
