By Oahu Volunteer Dive Team Coordinator & U/W Photographer Ken Staples
Ocean Defender Alliance-Hawaii and Nudi Wear partnered up to host a massive beach cleanup at Waiahole Beach Park located on the east side of Oahu close to Chinaman’s Hat.
On Saturday, August 1st, we met at the beach park promptly at 9:00 am. We welcomed 18 volunteers and three representatives from the Parks Division. This was a well-coordinated event (thank you Nudi Wear for your help) as the Parks Division brought two trucks and a supply of large trash bags for us to use.
After a brief overview of our plan, we all eagerly grabbed buckets, shovels, pickers, and gloves and started to work. And boy, there was plenty to pick up! We found lots of net, rope, tires, and plastic debris. Everyone was in good spirits and worked hard till 1pm.
Please take a moment to enjoy the photo slide show at the bottom of the article. You will see the wide variety of man-made trash and pollution that our large team of volunteers took time out of their day to remove! Kudos to each one of you for your energy and worthwhile efforts!
A large group of us dug out a huge net on the beach that weighed over 500 pounds by itself. We had to cut it into many smaller pieces just to carry it to the truck. We found several large plastic totes and floats from fishing vessels and also cleared several homeless campsites.
We removed several homemade fish traps, too. This was especially important to us as we have counted 17 dead baby hammerhead sharks that were left on the beach to die over the past two months.
Our group of beach cleaners also found a lift gate assembly (off a pickup truck) buried in the bushes and had to get five of us just to move it.
We are also coordinating with the Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation (DOBOR) as there are five or six old boats and skiffs (some located in the water offshore) that need to be removed. With their oversight, we’ll make this happen later in the month.
There are also several tires that we’ll remove with DOBOR as they are in the shallows.
Our haul was pretty impressive. We filled the back of the large flatbed truck and also the back bed of a pickup truck. We estimate the total weight of our haul was close to 3,000 pounds. We pulled out 18 truck tires and one tractor tire.
We’ll continue to keep Waiahole Beach Park on our list to clean at least once a quarter. There’s plenty of work for us to do both beneath the sea and on the beach.
Huge shoutouts to Ryan and Kristy with Nudiwear.
They are great ocean conservation partners and new ODA dive team members. Also, many mahalos to my son Trevor for all the event photos.
Stay tuned for the next great ODA adventure…and let us know if you want to be part of it! Email: info@oceandefenders.org
