Well, my time in Hawaii is quickly reaching an end and I'll be headed off to Australia on Saturday. Thought I'd catch up on my blog before I left... It's been a busy 2 weeks, but really informative and certainly a great way to start of my trip!
I spent a long weekend on the Big Island, where I stayed with a retiree from NOAA- originally a civil servant for the US Navy and sent to the Northwest Hawaiian Islands in the late 1970's to look at the declining monk seal population. Finding seals entangled in anything from derelict fishing nets to life vests, his focus quickly turned to the issue of marine debris. He now coordinates a beach cleanup every couple months for the southern tip of Big Island. During a cleanup on Saturday, we recorded a collection of over 27,000 pieces (about 2000 pounds) of marine debris, the majority being plastics. Throughout Friday and Saturday, we removed nearly two tons of nets off the rocky shores. Through past cleanup participants' stories and pictures, I learned that the coastal litter situation on South Point has greatly improved since the cleanups began in 2003... hard to believe it could've been much worse!
But I have to admit, my time on Big Island wasn't all work! The couple I stayed with live at 4,000 foot elevation on Kilauea Volcano so I had plenty of free time to hike and explore the craters. Also spent a night camping on the beach with a couple graduate students from University of Hawai'i Hilo, although was awoken in the middle of the night by the painful bite of a Hawaiian centipede..
Back on O'ahu, I've been staying with the Pacific Island Marine Debris Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program and her husband, a geologist at the University of Hawaii. They're hospitality has helped me to do and see as much as possible during the last few days of my stay! I got a chance to go Scuba Diving yesterday and was lucky enough to see a couple endangered Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles, which were surprisingly sociable and swam right along with me for quite some time.
Today, after an early morning at the Honolulu fish auction (a really unique event where the night's catch is auctioned off literally one fish at a time to a refrigerated room full of seasoned buyers), I checked out the bin where any used or derelict fishing nets or lines can be dumped. The discarded gear is then cut up and incinerated to produce energy through the newly established and quickly successful Nets to Energy Program. Later this afternoon, after an underwater cleanup with a gentleman from the local dive shop, I fit in a final meeting with a few more marine debris experts.
Between work and play, I've had a really productive and rewarding time in Hawai'i. I could not have found more generous people to have come in contact with- their guidance and interest in my project has given me the insight and experience needed to confidently tackle the issue during my future stops around the globe.
See you in Australia!
