By Kay Cooper, ODA North Hawai’i Island Volunteer Coordinator

Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA) volunteers were back at it again in North Kohala on the Big Island of Hawaii, at Mahu Kona State Park where our previous cleanup was forced to leave behind some tires for a future cleanup.

Dive site

On Saturday, April 11, Josh Cooper (my husband) and Carl (our son) and I, gathered all materials needed from dive shop partner Kohala Divers in Kawaihae before heading north to prepare for our second cleanup at Mahu Kona. Rubbish bags were loaded, a spare tank with a regulator, spare gloves, a table, lift bags for the tires, thick lines, a dive flag float, and all waivers that needed to be signed. 

Crew Kay and Juan prepping equipment

Once we arrived on site and started setting everything up, Kurt Lieber (ODA Founder), Sarah Milisen (Hawai’i Island ODA Chapter Leader), and Juan Chacin (long-time ODA volunteer), arrived in ODA's newly purchased electric truck to help prepare for the big haul! The ocean was looking really rough as Hawai’i Island has been getting a lot of storms, rain, and surge over the past several weeks. This day was the end of the most recent system that just passed through and the swell was coming up over the pier into the parking lot. 

This didn’t discourage our dedicated team from wanting to go in and collect the last remaining 7 tires from our previous cleanup! We had great support from shore, snorkelers on the surface, and a kayak in the water with a radio to communicate with those on land.

So, around 9:00 am, everyone gathered in the shade for a detailed safety and procedure briefing from myself and Sarah, describing how we were going to rig the tires to the lines; how to properly use the lift bags and safely send them to the surface; safety of the snorkelers on the surface recovering the tires and swimming them back to shore; and how we were going to get the tires out of the ocean! Everyone began to gear up and took with them a lift bag, line, rubbish bags, and gloves.

Our divers did a giant stride off the pier into the ocean; we handed down the scooters  (dive propulsion vehicles), and away they went! One diver took one of our scooters with them and one of our snorkelers had the other. This made it easier to initially relocate the tires left on a previous cleanup. We had previously run out of time and air, so these were left in a safe, sandy location until we could return.

Don Tremel brought his kayak again on this cleanup and followed the crew on the long swim to where the tires were located. 

When the tires were located, Don let us know on shore and the work began! The divers underwater started to arrange the tires into groups of two for the smaller ones, and one tire on its' own for the larger.

It was important for our divers to make sure they kept the line from the tire to the lift bag very short, so it did not scrape the sensitive reef. Once the first tire bundle was rigged and ready to go, divers would send the tires to the surface by filling the lift bag with air.

Bundle by bundle they were sent up until all tires were successfully removed from our oceans! Once on the surface, the snorkelers would then begin to swim them back to shore; some bundles would have 2-3 snorkelers with them; others would just have one with the scooter.

The shore crew was ready to go! We tossed a line to the volunteers in the water so they could tie it to the tires, and we began to heave them onto the pier! Carl was ready on "critter duty", checking the tires for any ocean life that may have been in them ready to release back home; he found an amazing banded coral shrimp! 

The tires were set aside and piled together as our other shore volunteers were collecting trash on land and adding it to the piles! Josh and Carl had brough back a large swimmers’ buoy that was washed up on shore, several articles of clothing, and various other food trash items, way to go guys!

Our team was in the water for about an hour, fighting the large swells and some current but managed to remove the toxin-releasing tires from our precious waters! 

The team for this cleanup consisted of: Juan Chacin, Carland Josh and Kay Cooper, Lucas Fuhrman, Bonnie, Henry and John Gallagher, Laura Jim, Kurt Lieber, Jack Mead, Sarah Milisen, Adrian Murphy, Bo and Jamie Pardau, James Redshaw, Darlene Richard, Neng Sutherland and Don Tremel.

Bo did his usual outstanding job of taking all the underwater photos! Be sure to check out the full photo gallery below. 

Thank you everyone for all the hard work! This is truly just a maintenance site now and is a lot healthier for our marine life!

Please continue to look at our calendar for future volunteer opportunities!