Net Haul a Success!

A few days ago I was lucky enough to lend a hand with some friends and help them haul a massive pile of entangled nets from the rocky coastline near the Point in Poipu.  This is an area heavily used by sea turtles and has endangered Hawaiian monk seals hauling out occasionally as well.  The gnarly pile of nets had been spotted by the volunteers for the Hawaiian Monk Seal Conservation Hui and time was of the essence to get the nets up and away from the surf zone so that they didn't get washed back out into the ocean again and entangle and drown any of our beautiful and endangered sea creatures!

There were six of us there that morning: David Griffiths, Sophia Senter, Royden Kabazawa, Mimi Olry, Steve from Surfrider Foundation Net Patrol and myself.  And quite honestly we could have done with six or seven more!  Whew, it was hard work.  We spent hours in the hot sun sawing through nylon cargo nets, fishing lines, fishing nets and gear, all knotted up and wrapped around unidentifiable chunks of plastic trash.  And what did we find to be the best tool of trade? Plain old steak knives, just like ones you would use to sit down to dinner, but this was a dinner like no other!  We had to cut bits of rope one at a time, with one person cutting, and one pulling, sweat pouring off our brow, just to get a small handful free, then cut some more, pull some more, finally get a chunk free, and haul it further up the rocks to get it out of the surf, then dig in again, wrangle and cut, until finally, hours later as the sun hit full noon, we had hauled about 1000 pounds of net off of that reef.

We were able to get the entire pile off of the coral just before the tide came up and washed over the site.  And we were then so lucky because as we got all of the ropes to the top of the cliff onto the walking path which circles the resort, Royden found one of the security guards from The Point, a young boy named Daryl Martin who came to our aid with a golf cart pulling a wagon.  He helped us load the pile into his cart and drove it to our truck about a hundred yards away in the nearby parking lot.  Good thing too, because honestly we were so exhausted by that time I really don't think we were gonna get it any further without him.  Once we got it into the truck, Steve, drove it up to Anahola.  Surfrider Foundation's Net Patrol ships them over to Oahu, and there they are incinerated, since they are plastic, and used for fuel by the power company.  A win-win all the way around!