By Oahu Volunteer Dive Team Coordinator & U/W Photographer Ken Staples

Aloha from Hawai’i!

We had another super successful Ocean Defenders Alliance Hawai’i (ODA-HI) cleanup dive on Saturday, March 16th. 

Our boat-full of volunteers departed our dive shop partners’ (Island Divers) dock at 1pm and headed out to our cleanup location.

The ocean conditions were perfect, and we were able to make our drop very close to Sea Cave on the Southeast side of Oahu. All of us SCUBA divers initially dropped to 81 feet and started our cleanup.

I couldn't believe the large amount of monofilament fishing line we found all over the reef.

The dive volunteers quickly got to work untangling line from the coral heads and started filling our buckets.

About halfway through our dive, our team moved to a ledge at a depth of 40' and found even more monofilament line! 

After 45 minutes, it was time to surface with buckets and bags full of debris. We found also removed a tire and 25-feet of 1.5-inch rope.

All in all, we estimated ridding the ocean of well over 1,000 yards of fishing line.  The sad part is we only made a small dent in what is still there. The good part is, we will go back.

We were proud of our accomplishments and felt honored when we were saluted for our efforts by two Honus that swam right by us.

Many mahalos to the exceptional group of volunteers who donated their time for our worthy cause. I hope you’re all as excited as I am for the next one!

Andrew Monig- our fearless dive leader
Kevin Wong
Christine Pang
Diane Pang
Ed Sisino
Glenn Roberts
Henry Bennet
Joel Moribe
Jordan Hauser
Scott Barrell
Bruce
AJ Jaeger – ace topside photographer
Ken Staples

See all the great photos here!