By ODA Hawai’i Island Chapter Leader Sarah Milisen

Kailua Pier, along Ali'i Drive in Kona, gets a lot of traffic. Cruise ships dock there weekly, fishers frequent the area, and multiple commercial operators meet their guests for ocean recreational activities at this area. For Ironman fans and competitors, this is the starting location of the Ironman 2.4 mile swim, and swimmers frequent this area to train and swim daily. 

Here you can see the large pier, and circled in red is the area where we entered the water. You'll see close-up photos of that below.

Kailua Pier overhead shot, credit marinas.com

On February 17th, with coordinated efforts from Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA) and two of our ocean cleanup partners – Body Glove and Jack's Diving Locker – more than 60 volunteers showed up to help make a difference in our ocean.

Breakfast was laid out courtesy of Body Glove, tanks were complimentary from Jack’s Diving Locker, and ODA crew were there to document and organize the action.

Before our cleanup orientation, we had a special moment together in a blessing circle led by Kaila.

We all held hands and blessed the land and our work for the day, and that everyone would be safe during our work.

Then the crew all gathered around for our safety and operational briefing that I gave.

After that, dive teams geared up, checked in with the coordinator, and got to work!

Shore support had lines with clips ready next to the break walls, waiting for divers to come up from their shallow dive to yell about a tire found, or other large items. Debris bags filled quickly – with the first dive team filling their bag in less than 10 minutes! Shore support volunteers tossed them a line, divers clipped it onto their full bag, and got tossed a fresh bag so they could drop back down and continue cleaning. 

Out in the water we had a crew on the boat Jack's Diving Locker to pickup the tires the divers recovered, and we also had several smallboats for safety watch.

Our dive boat partner Jack's Diving Locker
added great value!

Safety boats on constant look-out, ready to
help where needed.

Thanks to our faithful photographer Bo Pardeau, we have underwater photos to show you what it was like for the divers removing the abandoned fishing gear and other debris.

If you look closely at these pictures -- or better yet, click on the magnifying glass in the right corner to make them larger -- you can see the fishing line wrapped around the coral that the crew is delicately removing.

We had a special guest on this outing: ODA-California's longtime volunteer Kim Cardenas! It was fun getting to know her and working together.

Volunteers Terri and Kim

Kim and Kim (California Kim is in the back)!

Be sure to look at the photo gallery below for a bunch more cool pics!

It was madness for an hour – tires being pulled out, bags being exchanged, and then ALLLLL the sorting through debris following. As wheelbarrows of debris came back to our main setup area, it was all piled onto a large tarp for sorting.

Glass and cans full of sand and stuff could be home to creatures – so another team of volunteers patiently went back and forth to the shoreline to empty out all the bottles, and free the little brittle stars, urchins and potential little octopus that love to hide in those environments. We returned several baby sea cucumbers back to the ocean, as well as hermit crabs, worms, and even a baby eel! 

After an hour, divers came back from their dives to help sort through all the findings. I think I heard every single diver come back, look at that pile, and go, "WOW! That is SO MUCH trash!" 

In years past in this annual cleanup event, we have found functional bicycles, a shopping cart, a drone, credit cards, and even traffic cones. This event was traditionally held in September each year – but coordinators thought we should get out there more often – and I'm glad we did! We found four identification cards, a set of keys, a dozen lighters/vape pens (with toxic chemicals and batteries! Yuck!) about a dozen tires, clothes, two flooded cell phones, multiple sets of headphones, about 200 feet of fishing line, and OVER 200 glass bottles! All together, we hauled in over 600 pounds of debris that shouldn't have been in the water. 

SPECIAL THANKS to:

• Bo Pardau, our underwater photographer;
• Jack's Diving Locker for their donated boat to recover tires;
• Body Glove for their food;
• Baby Glove boat coordination;
• And most importantly, Mike and Joyce Stahley for the use of their truck to haul all the mess away to the dump!

Our ocean cleanup events are only possible with our dedicated volunteers – both our veterans that support us time and time again and all the new faces we saw at this event! THANK YOU ALL.

If you are unable to help at these events, but would still like to help, please consider a donation and sign up for our mailing list to find out about more future events in your area!