Make sure you watch the amazing video footage -- there's a bonus at the end! We promise it will make you smile!
By ODA Hawai’i Island Chapter Leader Sarah Milisen
Excitement was palpable in the air at the loading dock in the Kona Harbor, as Juan, Chad, Jacques, Brian, and I arrived early to start loading tanks with the help of Jack’s Diving Locker staff, Jeff, Teri and Bob on the 4th of May 2024.
Hundreds of cubic feet of nitrox were loaded onto the boat for a day of adventure aboard their Advanced boat, Na Pali Kai. Tanks gauged and gear set up, our mission was going all the way south, to a long-range site called The Hive, for a massive cleanup that has not been attempted thus far.
The crew on this outing were: Juan Chacin, Erin Clement, Jacques Delorme, Maura Hennessy, Bob Jensen, Teri Leicher, Jeff Leicher, Chad Merrill, Sarah Milisen, Elias Roberts, Juan Carlos Soto, Brian Sward, and James Ward.
After a 90-minute excursion to the site, located between Milolii and Kona Paradise Park, we anchored safely for the day and discussed our dive plan. Divers descended to agreed-upon depths and discovered more fishing line than most of us had anticipated.
Jacques and I went deepest, diving on air, to "start at the bottom" and work our way up to the other, shallower teams. We had to abandon our first attempt at balling up and collecting line in bundles. Every bundle we tried to free had 10 more buried anchoring lines underneath it that made it impossible to cut off and bring to shallower waters.
Feeling like failures, as we passed by other divers, they had filled their bags almost immediately and were using the spare ones nearby. Jacques came by with his huge red mesh bag, and divers poured their bags out into his, as he made his way up towards the surface for our long safety stop.
Teri Leicher of Jack's Diving Locker with Juan Carlos!
Left to right: JDL's Teri and ODA's SarahDivers worked hard during their time available, and quickly everyone was all back on board, and needing a good surface interval (break from diving). Maura came up after the dive and said she was just completely overwhelmed and didn't know where to start when she saw the amount of line we had to tackle. Erin, in her infamous fashion, seemed to fill her entire bag with just lead. Jeff and Teri agreed we needed to stay here for our second dive.
Surface interval sandwiches, chips, muffins, fruits, and Steve Jaskulski's insanely delicious Coconut Lemon bars to stuff into our faces, we were all leaning towards a nap rather than a second dive, but we all rallied, hydrated, and donned wetsuits again for our second removal mission. Hopping in and continuing our efforts, Jacques and I went back down for our discarded bundle – attached a lift bag and sent it up, cutting anything that was keeping it anchored down. Working our way up quickly, the process was repeated with his massive red bag collecting the smaller bag's findings, on our way up to our surface interval.
Check out this fantastic video! It shows you more than our still photography was able to capture. You'll see the long lengths of fishing line that we were picking up...AND...a surprise guest at the end!
Our experienced volunteers worked efficiently and hauled up an insane amount of line - the most line I have ever seen on any ODA cleanup on Hawai'i Island to date. We managed to fill up an entire 40-gallon Rubbermaid bucket with just line, with Jacque's big red bag holding the remaining also all smashed in and compacted in order to close the drawstring top. This was after just two dives with our amazing team!
I'm estimating our haul was roughly 20,000 feet of fishing line. Most of it was 80-pound test thickness. We hauled up almost 200 pounds of debris, with 50 pounds of that being toxic lead fishing weights alone as well as tackle and hooks. What a haul: 150 pounds of line was poured out on the dock in our two massive piles, and we could really see just how much line we really got off the bottom today.
It was astounding. Twenty-thousand feet of fishing line is an astronomical number, but we’re guessing we got perhaps 15% of the line out on these two dives, so more effort is needed to tackle this dive site in the future. We did all notice that the dive site looked noticeably cleaner than when we found it, especially in the shallower depths.
For scale, to see how large the piles are, check out our "models" with the hauled-out debris!
Corals tangled in line were freed from suffocation, and 200 pounds of manmade plastics and lead were off the reef – making it a healthier and safer place for our lovely, rare fishes – like the Tinkers Butterflies that seemed to nibble on Elias's fins or the rare male Whitley's boxfish we encountered on the reef where we worked.
If you'd like to support this much-needed debris-removal work – please donate to ODA. Our efforts cannot be accomplished without our wonderful donors partnering with us.
A HUGE THANK YOU to Jeff and Teri Leicher, owners of Jack's Diving Locker, for donating their crew, boat, delicious snacks, and efforts to make this an incredible WIN for our ocean today!
If you'd like to join on the next one, email us at volunteer@oceandefenders.org for future event updates!
