By Founder and President Kurt Lieber

With all the turmoil and fires that left a lot of Los Angeles in ruins, I was really looking forward to my first visit to Hawai’i for 2025.

I landed on the Big Island on Sunday, February 16^th, and headed to rendezvous with a group of volunteer divers that ODA Hawai’i Island Chapter Leader Sarah Milisen had rounded up. 

We boarded a dive boat run and owned by one of our partners Aquatic Life Divers (ALD).  I was a bit jet lagged, as I got to my lodging in Kona late the night before, but as soon as the boat pushed off, we sighted some big sharks about 10 feet under the water, and BAM! I was wide awake!

We saw several spinner dolphins as we headed out of the harbor, but my brain and camera were not quite in sync yet, so I didn’t get any pictures of that.  After a 20-minute ride to the dive site, we hooked on to a permanent mooring and the divers started getting into their gear.

As Sarah was giving a dive briefing, I saw a whale spout about 200 feet away from us.

By this time my brain had finally caught up to the moment, and I was able to get a few shots of the humpback whale. That whale surfaced a couple of times and then poof s/he was gone.

By this time all the divers were ready to splash. I stayed aboard and took pictures, envying the divers who were 60 feet down…but I could clearly see them from the surface.  What incredible visibility!

Volunteer divers for this day’s outing were: Juan Chacin, Jeremy Evans, Leah Fornwals, Maura Hennessy, James Kregness, Sarah Milisen, Adrian Murphy, Megan Murray, Tony Sepanski, Neng Sutherland and Don Tremel.  Doug Lomenzo, who works at ALD, took all the great underwater pictures we’re sharing here

This is what Chapter Leader Sarah had to say about what went on during the two dives:

ODA loves our partners here in Kona! Aquatic Life Divers (ALD) has recently pledged to adopt and clean Kaiwi Point and Pawai Bay dive sites with ODA – so a boat full of volunteers challenged the seas for an adventurous (sporty?) day of diving on President's Day, Monday February 17th.

Underwater was surgy at Outhouse (directly off Kaiwi Point). Lots of little abandoned lead fishing weights bundled in rock ridges and rounded out pockets up shallow. Down deep had tangles of fishing line, 4-prong lead weights, and lures, crisscrossing each other down into dangerous depths.

Those brave enough to manage depth, line cutting, NDL (no decompression limits), and air supply management found themselves busy cutting, pulling and weaving line from the deeper reef. We all came up shallow together in a big group sweep and braved the surgy depths to untangle corals and look for lead treasures in the rock pockets on our way back. We were visited by a lovely little honu, watching over our cleanup efforts, and serenaded by whale song between bubble breaths. 

Our next site was Pawai Wash Rock, the western-most mooring in Pawai Bay. James and I scouted deep with our new ODA DPVs (Dive Propulsion Vehicles – aka scooters) but immediately found ourselves down to line-cutting business in the depths, as the rest of the divers managed to catch up to us and help out with the line cutting and detangling. In shallow, divers had another honu sighting experience, and managed to find a shoe, and lots of little line lengths with hooks and sparkly plastic fly-like lures. Current picked up on that dive, the ocean tempting us to drift away from the boat, but our dedicated, experienced divers worked their way back through the current with their bags to haul out all our findings. 

Captain Kurt’s Closing

Twenty-four hours had not even transpired since I landed, and already ODA’s volunteers were making a difference.  I estimate that we removed 2,000 feet of fishing line, 5 pounds of net, 10 pounds of lead fishing weights, and 12 fishing lures with hooks.

While it might not sound like much, when you look at the picture of all the line that was removed, you get a sense that a whole bunch of critters are appreciative of our efforts and will not have to endure the life-threatening feeling of becoming entangled in the lines.

What a wonderful day, and fantastic crew!

And ODA has SPECTACULAR supporters – if you’re one of them, we want you to know how much we appreciate you. If you’re not yet an “ocean defender” please consider making a contribution towards clean oceans now!