By Volunteer and ODA Advisory Board Member Marjorie Zensen

Hard core. Nut cases. Crazy. Stubborn. Extreme. Determined. Or, how about this one: FAITHFUL!

I kind of like that one although I am pretty sure this group of Hawai’i Island ODA’ers have been called all of these names! Not a bad thing. I looked up the definition of “faithful” and here it is: “Firm and not changing in your friendship with or support for a person or organization, or in your belief in principles.”

Usually we use the word “faithful” in describing a person or relationship. But in this case, we can go a little further and use it to talk about how this group of people is devoted to what Ocean Defenders Alliance is  trying to accomplish. But maybe even more importantly, “faithful” describes how we feel about our mālama; our belief in our responsibility in “caring for and protecting” our ‘aina (land). A phrase we use here in Hawai’i is  “mālama honua,” which means to take care of the earth. And this is where ODA volunteers step forward. And sometimes it gets a little…interesting!

So, this started with a text from Jeff Milisen last week to a couple of us:

“…Like I often do, I am thinking about trash. Specifically, the Pololū net. Any of you want to hike the hill this weekend with some tape measures and plot its demise?”

Back in April when we first found the abandoned fishing gear.We had been trying to plan a trip back up there, well aware of the fish netting and ropes that were washed onto the large, pebbled beach. A few months ago, Mark and I were there with friends from Oahu, and we found a huge pile of net and rope. With the help of some burly tourists, we were  able to pull it above the water line. We pulled and tugged as much line and net as we could handle to carry back up the steep hill (a little over a half mile but with a quick elevation gain of 420 feet). But it wasn’t much, really, and we knew we had to go back. With traveling and other clean ups, this task had been pushed back.  Until Jeff’s text!  Notice how he said that he wanted to “plot its demise?” Right. Not when you have people like our fearless leader, Sarah Milisen, and Jeff Milisen, Jeff Jones and Pippa Swannell, Juan Chacin, my husband Mark England, me and oh, another of our Oahu ODA Volunteers who was visiting, Cristina Hernandez!  Nope! 

We all toiled away on different areas of the pile.

Thank goodness for good cutting tools and dedicated volunteers chipping away at the hazardous abandoned nets. We sure didn't want them to wash back out to sea and endanger wildlife!

It was quite a haul. Transporting 700 pounds up 420 feet higher took several trips.

Several hours later we were all sprawled about either on a pile of rope, netting or on the grass! Exhausted. Astonished.

Eight people accomplished THIS in just a couple hours. (Now would be the time to scroll back to those adjectives I started off with! :). ).

After we recovered a bit, we loaded the debris into Jeff Jones’ pick up. It completely filled the bed of his truck all the way up to the roof of the hard top.

We were a pretty happy group of Ocean Defenders as you can see! It's very satisfying to see that awful abandoned fishing gear out of harm's way.

The ODA Volunteer Crew with the big Catch of the Day!

We are so grateful to the volunteers who manage Pololū parking for allowing us VIP parking! They were so grateful for what we were doing, and they will NOT forget ODA! 

And we are glad that they won't forget us, because we didn't get it all! A second pile of netting and rope, further down the beach, was buried by an accumulation of rocks being pushed and pulled by the tides. We got some of it. But just some. Not really sure how deep it goes! We have a lot more work to do and I think next time we will take more people!

No more “plotting”, Jeff! But thanks for the push! Thanks for being so faithful Jeff, Sarah, Jeff, Pippa, Mark and Juan and thanks Cristina for going along with the plan while you were here on vacation! (Pretty sure friends are gonna start thinking twice about coming to visit us!!)

And thanks to those of you who support ODA financially! We needed supplies like knives and bags to get the job done!