In the morning we went to a beach to clean up marine debris. We each took a bag or bucket and walked around the beach collecting trash on the beach. While I was looking for trash I saw a sea turtle resting on the beach in a crevasse in the lava rock. At the same beach, after cleaning up debris, we helped with the restoration of an anchialine pool, a small pool of fresh and sea water that contains shrimp and other crustaceans, that had been blocked from the sea by sand from a previous tsunami. We cleared the sand for the pool and used the sand to make sandcastles for a small competition. My team made a whale shark named “Fluffy” that won third place. After that we went to Pololu valley, one of seven sacred valleys on the big island, were we went for a hike and to go to the beach. From the valley we headed to a hollow lava tube, but on the way there we stopped at pineapple farm for some pineapples. Our final stop for the day was the lava tube, which we walked through.
The beach restoration was an important activity to reduce our human impact. The plastic humans put into the ocean is harming marine life. By cleaning up the plastic we reduce to the plastic entering the ocean, thus reducing our human impact on marine animals, like green sea turtles.
The turtle I saw at the beach was a green sea turtle, I identified it by its single pair of prefrontal scales. I am glad that we cleaned up the plastic on the beach because the turtle could be harmed by the plastic.
The lava tube we walked through was formed by lava flow. It was a cave with mostly pahoihoi lava. The tube had several cave-ins that allowed light and entrance to the lava tube.
I am looking forward to going to the farmers market and seeing what Hawaiian agriculture is like.
