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By Oahu Divemaster & ODA Advisory Board Member Gary Liebmann
Sunday, April 21st, 2024, was an all day, Earth Day cleanup for Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA) on the Island of Oahu! We had two events: one was an onshore cleanup (first) and then we did an at-sea dive on debris.
We began our Earth Day celebration early Sunday morning at Magic Island Beach Park in Honolulu. Our Volunteer Coordinator, Temple Liebmann, coordinated with Kanu Hawaii, an organization that supports local nonprofits hosting volunteer opportunities. They arranged for ODA to participate in a beach/ocean cleanup, alongside Aqualung, Nudiwear, and a couple of other dive clubs to help clean up the Magic Island Beach Park and ocean.
Temple spent the weeks prior to the event reaching out to local middle and high schools to recruit as many volunteers as possible. As it turned out, we had over 50 enthusiastic volunteers show up and sign in at our tent. After signing in and welcoming them, we handed them a trash picker and a bucket, and off they went in search of trash in the park, the shoreline, and the break walls.
We had such an amazing turn out of volunteers, we had to send one of our volunteers, Eddie, to the local ABC store to buy trash bags and latex gloves because we ran out of buckets and pickers!
A couple of the other organizations were scuba diving in the boat channel in search of rubbish, however, we decided to focus on all the trash topside and just do a beach cleanup for the morning event. We had a second ocean cleanup later in the afternoon scheduled and we wanted our divers to be focused and ready to go.
I was amazed to see the amount of trash that kept coming back to the ODA tent, from plastic bottles to helium tanks for party balloons and big pieces of plywood! All the volunteers, many of them families, seemed to be having such a great time cleaning the local park with smiles all around, and the weather could not have been better!
We decided to start wrapping up the morning event at 11am so we would have time to pack up all the tables and gear and begin making our way over to Maunalua Bay Boat Launch for the afternoon ocean cleanup event we had scheduled at 1:30pm.
Our volunteers began making their way back to the ODA tent and dropped off the collected trash. Success! We had a huge pile that we estimated to easily weigh over 200 pounds!!!
Earth Day Part Two - Celebrating Our Ocean
The second part of our Earth Day cleanup – an at-sea cleanup – started at Maunalua Bay Boat Launch where our volunteers started to arrive promptly at 1:15.
The manifest was full with 14 divers signed up not including myself as the safety diver. All together there were 15 enthusiastic divers ready to make an impact and help clean up the reefs on the southeast side of Oahu.
I was very excited to see four new volunteers this time: Mackenzie Hazel, Antonio Hernandez, Isabel James, and Jordan Spalding. Aloha and welcome to the Ocean Defenders Ohana (family)! I’d also like to mention Temple Liebmann and Aby Liebmann who volunteered as crew to help the divers with all of their gear and to make sure they were able to safely enter and exit the water, Mahalo for keeping us safe!
Captain John Hansen and the vessel Na Makana arrived at the Maunalua Bay boat launch at approximately 2pm. After helping unload the boat from the previous charter, we loaded up all of the ODA volunteers and equipment and were quickly underway.
We were hoping to make it around to Fish Camp this time, but as we started to round the point in Portlock the conditions weren’t looking as good as we hoped. Considering we had four new volunteers, we aborted and decided to take a conservative approach and stay in the safety of the Bay at Spitting Cave.
After a thorough dive briefing and ensuring all of the divers were all suited up and ready to go, I made the announcement to the captain that we were ready to have him maneuver us into position for the drop.
Because of the number of the divers, we had to make two different drops because the wind and current was blowing us off the wall and away from the dive site. Kudos to Captain John for his sailing skills and expertise in ensuring that we still all ended up together as a group once we made our way to the bottom.
This time, we went in with three buckets and in just under 35 minutes we managed to fill all three of them with fishing line and lead weights.
Once the buckets were full, I alerted Dive Master David Marcelli that it was time to call the dive and to pop his delayed surface marker buoy. He led the team off the wall to a location that was safe for the captain to pick the team up. Meanwhile, the three bucket masters and their buddies began to float the buckets by inflating lift bags and then move them off and away from the wall, ready to be picked up by the captain and the Na Makana.
Look to the right of the diver; you can see the float bag nearing the surface.
As always, our very experienced team was successful in getting all three of the buckets up onto the safety of the boat and we made our way back to the boat launch so we could sort and inspect the rubbish we collected.
Once safely back on shore, we bid farewell to Captain John and the Na Makana and started to weigh the buckets before emptying them on the trunk floor mat of David Marcelli’s Lexus. (Oops, we forgot the tarp, thanks David!)
Once weighed, we collected an astonishing 245 pounds of lead weight between the three buckets, and an estimated 5,000 yards of fishing line. Not a bad haul for 30 minutes!!
Look at this mess of fishing line!
Special shout out to Crystal Gray for taking these stellar underwater images. Also, we thank Temple for showing us what all the topside fun looked like through her lens.
It was once again a very successful trip and a rewarding way to celebrate Earth Day. Everybody seemed to have a really good time and it was a lot of fun to meet some new volunteers and start some new friendships!
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