What types of debris do you see in the water when your diving?

Here in Hawaii, the way the ocean currents flow, most ghost gear collects in the Pacific garbage patch, but some spins out and washes ashore. We also find fishing equipment such as nets floating at sea, and regularly we find recreational fishing lines and toxic lead weights on the corals of the near-shore bottoms.

We did an earlier cleanup in September, of Keauhou Bay, but we knew we had hardly made a dent. So, we’re excited that our partner, Ocean Defender Alliance, has returned! Sunday, Jan 29th, we headed back to the harbor, our home port, and dived back into cleaning our oceans. Here's an inventory of our haul:

• 29 tires
• 2 giant boat battery banks
• boat zincs
• chain
• fishing poles
• safety cones
• line, lures, & mats
• cans
• a ginormous knife
• lots of plastics and more
• All totaling 1200Lbs of trash!

 

We had treasures Underwater too!

A fashionable pair of sunglasses (NOT!) and a full bottle of beer! The first minute of the dive was enjoyable with Sea Turtles, Pufferfish, Trumpetfish, and Moorish Idols but after the first tire was hauled up the visibility went to zero!

Our amazing Clean-up Volunteers

All the volunteers worked very hard but were in good spirits and had fun! Some met new dive buddies, and everyone enjoyed supporting the amazing, ODA organization.

We had 23 JDL Club divers, many of Jack's staff supported as volunteers, and the event was coordinated by Alli, Matt, and Katelynn of Jack's Diving Locker and Kurt from ODA.

Kohanaiki donated cold beers and soft drinks to our volunteers after the clean-up, we thank you Kohanaiki!

A huge mahalo to all who participated.

Want to learn more about our efforts in conservation?

Check out our commitment to our Day Use Moorings program.

Jack’s is also an Ecofriendly business doing our part above and below the surface.
Meet our new Conservation Outreach Coordinator Alli Craig.