On Saturday, May 8th we held our monthly underwater cleanup dive at our adopted dive site, Point Panic. This dive site is located just outside of Waikiki. It is at the mouth of Kewalo Basin, a popular boat harbor used by many tour companies and private boats too. We had a smaller group show up this month due to it being Mother’s Day weekend. However, the group of volunteers who showed up brought their A game!
Divers entered the water in buddy groups of 2 or 3 people. Each group choosing their own area to focus on. Some divers headed north along the wall into the harbor, some divers headed south along the boat channel, and some divers headed across the channel to a known fishing hotspot. The divers who headed across the channel found large sections of the reef completely covered in fishing line. They had to carefully cut away the line, being mindful not to cause any further damage to the coral or to become entangled themselves. This can be a real hazard to the marine life that frequents this area.
Another group of divers encountered a white tip reef shark who had a hook in its mouth and was tangled in the reef. The divers were able to safely remove the line that was entangling the shark and it swam away! A very real reminder of why we do this each month! Some other wildlife spotted during the dive were green sea turtles, scorpionfish, nudibranchs, a mantis shrimp, and lots of fish.
Together we pulled 135 pounds of rubbish off the reef! An impressive feat for only 9 divers in about an hours worth of work.
We recovered 2 fishing nets, a water hose, 3 fishing poles, a reel, large ropes, artificial flowers, and boat parts on top of the usual large amounts of aluminum cans, plastic bottles, food wrappers, and glass bottles. We also removed a sizeable amount of fishing line with hooks and 12 pounds of lead weights.
