By ODA Hawai’i Island Chapter Leader Sarah Milisen
Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA) volunteers and Aquatic Life Divers (ALD) staff ventured out on our second cleanup dive together, this time along Kaiwi Point on the Big Island of Hawai'i, August 17th aboard one of their dive vessels, the Johan. (Our first outing with ALD was on June 10, 2024).
Volunteers with me on this lovely outing were: Juan Chacin, Maura Hennessey, Carlo Ko, James Kregnice, Chad Merrill, Jeff Milisen, Bo Pardau, Jamie Pardau, Bayli Payne, Tony Sepanski, Brian Sward and Curtis V.
Thanks Bo, for the outstanding photos!
Our first site, unappetizingly named "Outhouse" is situated between Kaiwi point and Keahuolu Point, just south of the Honokohau Harbor. There actually is an outhouse on land that vessel captains use as a reference to line up their boat to the cove and mooring ball. Our Captain, Ryan Plunkett, had no problem getting us there and ready to dive!
We divided up into two teams - the deep team and the shallow team. The latter team was to survey and collect debris to the south of the mooring. ODA has cleaned this dive site once before with another Big Island boat partner, Kona Honu Divers, so we knew that most of the debris is to the south of the site.
Deep team, led by Doug Lomenzo, (the general manager of ALD) spread out to survey between 60-110 feet, collecting some larger lures, old algae-covered line, and some rope fragments. The further south we traveled, the more line and anchor weights we came across. Eventually as air and bottom time dictated a turning point for us, we ascended shallower and met up with the shallow team, led by Mary Wallingford. Shallow Team had been surveying the 15-40-foot depth range. They found lots of man-made items, including:
- Fishing equipment
- Smaller lead weights
- Fishing line
- Bags of lures and hooks
- A spool of unused fishing line.(see photo above!)
- Bayli even found a 3-prong spear!
- Other items:
- Clothing
- Food containers and cans
Our teams did an excellent job of combing over the entire dive site in the 60 minutes we were underwater, making the best use of our time and volunteers on board!
This dive site is an absolute necessity to keep clean because it is COVERED in Pocillopora, or cauliflower coral. In 2014, the waters around Hawai'i reached a smoldering 86° Fahrenheit, causing massive coral stress and bleaching. Some of the coral populations had a 90% die-off during that time, in certain areas. Kona, Hawaii, was no exception. Most of the corals that suffered were cauliflower corals, and we are watching them repopulate and come back over the last decade. Here is a closeup of one of the corals with a leaf scorpionfish inside it!
This dive site is a huge boulder field, but on each boulder, I have counted over 50 baby cauliflower coral heads – so this is an incredible nursery for cauliflower coral growth and spawning, as well as settlement. It must be protected and free of fishing line entangling and nets!
Second Dive Site
Once we deemed this site cleaned for the time being, we freed ourselves from this mooring and headed over to Pawai Bay, just south of Outhouse. Pawai Bay is a protected area, along the coast of Queen Lili'uokalani Trust land, which is set aside for native Hawaiians. There are several dive moorings off the coast there, so we tied up to one of them to the west and divided up again into two teams – East and West to divide and conquer. Go teams!
Team East was fortunate that there was little to clean up. They found a huge frogfish, two whitetip reef sharks, a viper moray, and octopus!
Painted frogfish checks out ODA!
Our West Team went shallow along the cliff faces, battling the surge to collect line wrapped around tiny coral heads. Cans, bottles, and even a woman's sandal were found! Three Spotted Eagle Rays distracted us for a moment, then we returned via the deeper drop-off. Doug, Juan, Chad, and I found some long, weaving fishing line, wrapped around a huge antler coral head that was broken in fragments. I picked up the entire ball of fishing line with coral, and carefully unwound the coral from the tangled web, replanting the live coral pieces as best as I could.
Teams East and West rejoined under the boat after our 60 minutes of dive tank air to show off our haul.
Aquatic Life Divers and ODA Volunteers surveyed and cleaned four dives sites that day along Kaiwi Point and will be regularly returning to adopt and maintain these beautiful habitats – critical for spotted eagle rays, sharks, octopus, and even little growing cauliflower coral heads.
ODA Crew with Catch of the Day
Our haul brought in about 50 pounds of debris: six cans, four spark plugs, 10 lures, 20 hooks, 25 pounds of lead fishing weights, 1500 feet of fishing line, a pole spear, a sandal, some clothing scraps, and two pairs of sunglasses (not cool!).
If you're interested in volunteering, please contact us volunteer@oceandefenders.org to learn about upcoming opportunities! If you’re not able to attend, please instead donate to our efforts to keep YOUR ocean cleanup crews going out and doing what we do best – thank you!
