By Kay Cooper, ODA North Hawai’i Island Volunteer Coordinator
So many proud moments when so many incredible volunteers come together for a common goal: protect our ’Aina (land) and our Kai (ocean)!
On Saturday, March 2, 2024, I had the incredible opportunity and honor to organize the in-water portion of a large cleanup event for Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA). The wonderful Cynthia Ho with Keep Puako Beautiful organized the onshore cleanup and event in general.
This event was held at Spencer Beach Park in Kawaihae (North Kohala) on the Big Island of Hawai’i. This particular beach is a very popular go-to-beach not only for ocean activities but also for campers as well. Many families come to Spencer Beach each weekend to camp, utilize the large gazebo for parties and events, picnic tables throughout the park for gatherings and to share a meal, grass fields for laying on, and it also has freshwater rinse stations and restrooms.
Unfortunately, with so much activity every day and especially on weekends, the rubbish receptacles become full quickly and the rubbish makes its way onto the ground and easily blown into the ocean with the high winds this area gets frequently.
Some bottles and cans that are set on the walls of the gazebo, which is right on the ocean, get knocked off and fall directly into the ocean without retrieval.
That’s where we come in! Cynthia Ho organizes many cleanups here in North Kohala as Keep Puako Beautiful and partners with many organizations that all have the same common goal as us. The word spreads quickly and before you know it the clean-up event turns into a day filled with games, prizes, education booths, rubbish turned-to-treasure to make hats or recycled in some other way, and also snacks for everyone to munch on! There were so many participating groups from local businesses, to non-profits, and donations of prizes to be given away from those who wanted to be represented by our cause.
I was beyond excited to be at this large event as ODA as we had 13 divers volunteer their time helping to make a cleaner ocean! Not many in-water cleanups have been done at this site so I was very curious what our divers would pull out. I stayed dry to work as shore support alongside Brian Sward from Jack’s Diving Locker. One of our jobs was looking for bags full of rubbish to exchange for new ones and also keeping an eye on bubbles as the divers would spread out following the rubbish trail.
Everyone first started to arrive at the event at 8 am and began the sign in process. Introductions were made, gear was starting to be assembled, and I started my briefing at 9 am. Soon after that, we were off! Divers entered in the middle of the beach, and we focused on the south end of Spencer Beach along the rocky points and shallow reefs extending about 30 yards out from shore. Rubbish really started to be seen closer toward shore where most of the human activity is highest with TONS of cans and glass bottles. Much of what was found HAD to be left behind as the type of sand there was so fine, when a diver would pick up one bottle, the visibility quickly went from 8 ft to 0. Then our divers got creative and would move onto another area close to where they had been working and waited for the sand to settle, then return to that previous spot and resume their duties.
Our divers began to stretch out along the shore and follow fishing line, remove hooks, lead weights, and even an entire fishing pole with a full reel still attached!
Our divers removed about 2,000 feet of fishing line, 45 lead weights, 30 aluminum cans, a fishing net with a wooden pole, 10 large hooks and several smaller ones, 2 plastic bottles, 2 plastic cups, 1 large thick plastic cup from a kitchen, 15 glass bottles, a vape pen, 5 hair ties, 4 ceramic pieces including a ceramic cup, 5 fishing bobbers, 1 lighter, several cloth and rubber fragments, 4 various lengths of rope, and around 20 glass fragments!
This was a very successful cleanup both in the water and on land and I couldn’t be prouder to have worked with such incredible land and ocean advocates. There were smiles on everyone’s faces, students from a local school (HPA) were here to educate anyone on our wonderful sea turtles with the amazing Laura Jim, and laughter was heard from everyone all around!
A huge shoutout and big mahalo to our 13 divers! (Apologies on any incorrect spelling of names): Brent Bowman, Katie Browder, Amanda Drake, Corey Drake, Todd Hackett, Kevin Kenner, Lacy Kvaznikoff, Adrian Murphy, Regina Padlock, Mike Stahy, and N. Sutherland (apologies the pen didn’t write all the letters of your first name!), and Kevin Tadlock.
Please be on the lookout for future cleanups with ODA and our super partners as well! Until next time! Hope you enjoyed the read, what a great team we make!
Check out the whole list of cleanup sites on our Hawai'i page!
