In between the past few hurricane scares we we able to have a fantastic Blue'aina. Our team partnered with local realtor Joseph Pluta, The Maui Huliau Foundation and the Hawaii National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. Shoutout to Captain Jack's Island Grill for providing another excellent meal for our volunteers and crew!

After beach loading supplies and volunteers off the Ka‘anapali shore, we motored off  to Cliff house in Kapalua to spend the day cleaning the reef and teaching our volunteers about the ecosystem.

Joseph Pluta has been a proud supporter of  Trilogy's Blue ‘Aina mission, ".. to cleanup and maintain Maui's reefs, educate the community, and raise money for non-profits."  Pluta has donated many times to Blue'aina in the past, this time donating a generous $1,000! The money our sponsors donate is always put to good use in our community. The recipient of this Blue'aina was the The Maui Huliau Foundation.

The Maui Huliau Foundation is a non-profit that's mission is simple and clear, "..to promote environmental literacy and leadership among Maui's youth through community based educational experiences." This includes teaching the youth principles of leadership to help them to prepare for their futures. They also have a Environmental filmmaking club which is designed to assist students in investigating environmental or conservation related issues affecting their community, storyboard, film and put together video projects. Check out their YouTube Channel to learn more.

This trip we were lucky enough to have the Hawaii National Marine Sanctuary Foundation with us to take water samples and send them to a lab to learn more about the amount of broken plastic in the waters off of Maui.  The process to collect such data is a simple one. Below you see the manta tawl, which is dragged behind in the water for about 30 minutes and collects any debrief inside a collection bag. After the debris is collect we tested the water for pollutants and plastics before we send the samples off to the lab to get finer measure. Volunteers learn about how to test the water with Raul Paiz from the Hawaii National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

It was only fitting to have the donation check presented underwater by Joseph Pluta to Malia Cahill of The Maui Huliau Foundation. Huge Mahalo to Joseph Pluta for sponsoring the trip and donating money to such a great cause.   Mahalo nui loa to all of our volunteers and Sponsors for Blue'aina October 2014! We hope to see you all again soon. Thanks to all for donating there time and money to help keep Maui's reefs clean.