By Kay Cooper, ODA North Hawai’i Island Volunteer Coordinator
ODA volunteers returned to Kawaihae after a long break, due to weather, to clean both the highway and the ocean on Saturday, June 27,2026!
Kawaihae is an area that’s highly affected by strong winds, which blow a lot of rubbish into the ocean from the highway. The frequent strong surf prevents us from cleaning the ocean as frequently as we would like.
The first of the two cleanups was our Adopt a Highway. We want to get trash off the land before it blows out to sea! Our 9 volunteers met at our partner Kohala Divers at 7:30 AM to sign in, get all materials they need such as safety vests, trash bags, gloves, buckets, and rubbish pickers. Once everyone was ready to go, I gave a detailed briefing on the location we were going to clean, safety issues, duration, and what items to look for.
The highway cleanup was to last only one hour. The volunteers were cleaning the highway heading along the northern portion of the road, always cleaning against traffic so they could watch each car coming by them.
The highway cleanup was successful. Our volunteers filled 9 large trash bags and moved some larger items close to the edge of the road for pickup. Mahalo everyone!
Second Cleanup
Once the highway cleanup was complete, the volunteers returned to Kohala Divers where they dropped off all their highway cleanup gear and swapped them all for tanks to prepare for the next portion of the day, the Adopt A Blue cleanup (a shore walk-in dive). Divers started to arrive around 9:30 AM to sign in, collect their free tanks, and rent any additional gear they may need.
I arrived in the parking lot of the small Kawaihae Boat Harbor, or the Northern Harbor, near the Kawaihae Canoe Club, where I set up the tarp to sort gear, all the collection bags, and had divers sign in as they arrived. I began a safety and procedure briefing around 10 AM discussing where along the breakwall we would be cleaning and where the bulk of the rubbish was.
Divers then got a couple of collection bags per buddy team and off they went! We chose a different route this time which was to enter the water from the boat ramp, inside the small harbor and surface swim until they reached the small harbor opening. From there our divers descended right outside the harbor entry outside the breakwall and began to work!
Right away our team started working on a lot of older fishing line that had been entangled on the corals and under water for a very long time. This line was very stubborn, and our team had to cut carefully as to not damage any coral or stir up too much sand and silt.
Slowly they made their way along the breakwall, working on the fishing line while other buddy teams swam 10-20 feet from the wall working on removing lead and removing some fishing poles as well. Most volunteers worked the south breakwall area of the opening to the harbor while different buddy teams worked the north side.
One team found a large, heavy abandoned net and a small bucket full of concrete! Great work! I exchanged a couple full debris collection bags for empty ones to divers below so they could continue to work well, not having to hold their full bags.
Divers stayed under water working for one hour, safely surfaced near the harbor entrance, then began to surface swim back to shore with their bounty! Overall, we recovered 3,000 feet of fishing line, 10 pounds of lead weights, 6 golf balls, a spark plug, a scuba mask and snorkel, 20 various size fishing lures, a dive flashlight, 2 fishing poles, 3 bobbers, a rubber mat, sunglasses, 2 aluminum cans, 2 glass bottles and various glass shards, multiple plastic items, various food containers, and a large net which was approximately 5 pounds on its own! Way to go team!
Ocean Defenderes Alliance Hawai'i Crew with Their "Catch of the Day"
Our volunteers today were Matthew Belcher, Juan Chacin, Tom Drury, Heidi Ewing, David Frazier, Lucas Fuhrman, Sarah Little, Gordon MacDuff (Kohala Divers Staff), Melinda Menchetti, TJ Merrell, Meghan Murray, Sivan Najita (Kohala Divers Instructor), Dot Norris, and James Ridgway.
Mahalo everyone for your continued hard work and dedication to saving our ocean! Please look for future cleanups with us!
Are you on the Big Island of Hawaii and want to join in helping the local environment? Great! Please email us so you can participate on an upcoming cleanup.
