By ODA Hawai’i Island Chapter Leader Sarah Milisen

Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA) and Kona Honu Divers (KHD) partnership kicks off 2026, with their first cleanup of the year on January 25th! With a sold-out boat and several newcomers, volunteers were excited and eager to get back into it for the new year, with our first stop at our adopted dive site along Keahole Point. 

We dove the south side of Keahole Point for the first dive - coming back with over FIFTY-FIVE pounds of pure lead on our first dive! It was a remarkably calm morning with little current—allowing our team to get in shallower than we typically can, and super close to shore. This opened up a ton of areas we can't always get into—and the payoff was lead, some line, and more lead! Man, our divers were busy!

My husband Jeff Milisen, crew for Kona Honu Divers today (as well as today's Underwater Photographer, AND a trusty Board of Advisor member!) was out shooting people in action like crazy, when he spotted some cable in shallow out of the corner of his eye. Upon inspection, this would be a bigger removal job—so luckily I had brought some lift bags, just in case!

Captain Kimo football-tossed those lift bags to Jeff, as he got to work. Gathering some volunteers (he's supposed to be photographing!), they wound up needing BOTH lift bags to recover this massive, long, heavy wiring harness and several volunteers to help swim it back to the boat—finishing out our first dive with a 100-plus-pound wiring cable, and over 55 pounds of lead! 

We decided to head to Golden Arches South, where our team has done 3 previous group cleanups via boat so far. I was on the first “discovery” of this site, and I was horrified. Line splayed out across coral heads, streamers of line draping off the drop off, and when the last cleanups there were forced to stay a little north, I knew we hadn’t gotten to the thick of it.

As a drift dive, we were required to have a crew stay on board, so I did our best to position the divers further south, and boy did they hit a jackpot. Jeff found an entire fishing reel with line attached! Divers were busy. Meghan Murray, one of our “always there” volunteers, said: "It took us a minute to find the payload, but when we were there, we knew it! Lines and lead everywhere. The lead was clustered into little pockets with sand and shells, as if the waves had helped it accumulate there. You could dig down through multiple layers and keep turning up more lead. It was a very productive dive!"

Jack Mead, another steadfast volunteer, also echoed those thoughts.  "There was a lot of lead on the shelves. The closer I looked, the more lead I found. I believe there is probably another 500+ pounds down there in just that area. With as much lead as I had, I definitely needed a lift bag!"

Our divers pulled up a staggering EIGHTY POUNDS on this one dive, alone, for a total lead haul of over 130 pounds in one boat charter! A record for us on this island!!!  We also removed 50 pounds of miscellaneous debris: bolts, hooks, lures, a glove, a few plastic utensils, light up lures, 2 3-prong pole spears, and roughly 600ft of line. Plus100+lb of wiring cable. 

ODA volunteer ocean cleanup crew with their catch of the day.

ODA works with many community members here on the Big Island, to keep these events consistent. Over the years, our volunteers have become not just friends, but ohana (family). Their hard work and diligence, steadfast volunteerism, and their donations make a remarkable impact for the ocean, our island, and future generations. 

Mahalo to all our incredibly hard-working volunteers, this day and every day! 

Our volunteers from this event: Hannah Brosky, Kate and Jaycee Butler, Mark England, John Gallagher, Henry Gallagher, Donna Goodale, James Kregness, Jack Mead, Jeff Milisen, Meghan Murray, Dot Norris, Avi Shai, Eric Stockdale, Harvey Surprenant, Tony White, and Majorie Zensen. 

Well-deserved shout out to Captain Kimo Santos and Andy Feifarek for crewing the Kona Honu Divers boat.  ODA also thanks Jeff Milisen for taking these great UW photos!

If you'd like to volunteer, our next two events on Big Island are February 8th at Honokohau Harbor (you don't have to be a diver!) and February 9th at Kawaihae Surf Park! Hope to see you there!!! Please send us an email, we'd love to hear from you.