By Founder and President Kurt Lieber
It’s been a while since we’ve dipped our toes into the waters of Honokohau Harbor…in fact it’s been three months. But with 62 volunteers, that all changed when we got together on Sunday, February 23rd. We were also treated to a very special visitor later in the day.
This harbor is about three miles from downtown Kona and is filled to capacity with all manner of dive boats, whale watch boats, snorkeling boats, and fishing vessels. We started doing underwater cleanups here in July 2018, marking this as our 11th successful outing!
The day was one of those typical Hawaiian winter days, partly cloudy and not too hot at a reasonable 82 degrees.
We all gathered in the parking lot of the harbor at 9am. ODA Hawai’i Island Chapter Leader Sarah Milisen was the lead on this project, so she gave the dive briefing. We discussed all the safety issues we needed to cover before anyone got in the water, for both the divers and the topside support.
Because this area we were working in sees a high amount of boat traffic, we needed to make sure the divers knew not to venture out into the middle of the boat channel, lest they encounter a moving boat or spinning propellor.
Two volunteers brought their kayaks and served as our “eyes on the water.” Then we had two people don their snorkeling gear and were all set to dive down and alert the divers if they were venturing into harm’s way. Thanks to our donors, they used our new Drive Propulsion Vehicles, so they could maneuver around the area quickly.
Once all the safety people were in position, the divers started getting in the water. Some walked down a boat ramp with their gear on, while others chose to jump off the end of a short pier.
Within minutes of the first divers going in, things started coming up. First it was just a few items, like fishing poles, small bits of carpet, and PVC plumbing tubes that are used on the boats.
Then the big stuff started to make it to the surface: a few tires, metal and plastic parts that belong on a boat NOT in the water, and two huge batteries. These are what are called 8D batteries and are used in the larger boats, with each one weighing about 125 lbs. No easy lift!
See the large battery in the front of his wheelbarrow
For the next two hours volunteers kept finding things underwater that hadn’t appeared to have been there earlier in the day. But things just kept revealing themselves and the divers kept at it until their air was about to be out and we called it quits around 11am.
During the dives, two turtles (honu) were sighted: one green sea turtle and one hawksbill turtle. Our volunteer Bo Pardau has some great shots of them!
Green sea turtle by Bo Pardau
Hawksbill turtle by Bo PardauJust as the last of the divers were exiting the water we had a surprise visit by a monk seal!
These guys are highly endangered and seeing one in person is always a thrill. But this was extra special because s/he swam right over to the divers and was checking them out, then over to the support crew in their kayaks. We got an extra dose of adrenaline from that! This is why we do what we do!
So you can see a photo of the full monk seal, our friend Bo Pardau shared this photo with us:
Once the divers and support crew were back in the parking lot and got out of their dive gear, we posed for the group shot and marveled at all the stuff we hauled out. In total, I estimate it weighed 2,300 pounds.
ODA Ocean Cleanup Crew with their "Catch of the Day"
Next, we put all the debris that was non-toxic into the dumpsters and loaded the toxic tires and batteries into a truck. Those were headed to a site that handles toxic debris.
It was quite an event, having 62 people show up. They may not all have made it into the group photo above, but here is a list of the names of those who signed in: Ryan Beberwyck, Jim Blair, Brent Bowman, Keith Brown, Juan Chacin, Val Coleman, Jennifer Colimon, Daniel Colimon, Kay Cooper, Carl Cooper, Josh Cooper, Andrew Devaney, Garth Edwards, Mark England, Jeremy Evans, Ash Fletcher, Lucas Fuhrman, Jody Gans, Cheryl Gans, John Gill, Camilo Giogio, Maile Goss, Samantha Haney, Mo Hennessy, Pamela Hicks, Michael Hoffman, Sean Holmes, Frank Iwancio, Tracy Jelly, Robert Jensen, Nathalie Johnson, Jim Johnson, Dick Jones, Karen Jones, Gabriel Katz, Lucy Mangum, Jack Mead, Sarah & Jeff Milisen, Lynette & Tristen Muhich, Javin Paoli, Bo & Jamie Pardau, Jaeson Paul, Sarah Pugh, Laura Rogers, Tony Sepanski, Brian Sward, Lisa Tyerman, Curtis VanZandt, Savannah Wheeler, Jenny Woolery, Pamela Zagar and Marjorie Zensen.
I want to thank our partners Jack’s Diving Locker and Kona Honu Divers for supplying the scuba tanks.
I really appreciate that Pacific Waste Management once again hauled all the stuff away and donated those services. They don’t waste time helping out!
Lastly, thanks to Bo Pardau for helping me out with all the photographs and for letting us use some of his photos of the critters that the divers saw this day but weren’t able to get any pictures of because…well…we were working!
Here's one more of his photos to "wow" you and then be sure to look at the entire gallery below for more of Bo's photos and pictures of this great group of people working so hard for clean oceans - and having fun while they do it!
Hawksbill turtle with some friends!
If you live on the Big Island, this kind of cleanup is a great way to get involved with ODA and is family friendly, too. Send us a quick email if you’d like to be added to our list to be notified when the next cleanup happens.
