HONOLULU (KHON2) — New drone footage shows a long white scar along the reef where the 75-foot Atlantis vessel ran aground at Kewalos two weeks ago.
The boat sat against the rock wall for 10 days until it was removed on Aug. 19.
It’s unknown yet whether the scar is from the boat being removed on Aug. 19. But Friends of Kewalo, a non-profit that protects and preserves the area has not seen the scar before.
“It had to come from the vessel,” explained Friends of Kewalo president Ron Iwami. “Whether it came from towing out or when the boat came into the resting place on the rocks.”
A few days after the boat was aground and the high surf died down, a team from the state’s Division of Aquatic Resources dove down to do an initial assessment of coral and reef damage.
DAR said it documented large coral colonies and found removal routes that would cause the least amount of damage. They GPSed the coordinates and then provided the info to the salvage crew. Those initial assessments were done on Aug. 13 and 14.
“The initial assessment looked fairly well,” explained Jake Reichard, Aquatic biologist for DAR. “The damage assessment for after extraction – it did hit some coral colonies most of it is overall live rock damage and it’s kind of the rocks underwater with limu and stuff growing on it, that’s what we classify as live rock.”
There has not been a final assessment released just yet.
“Even though they call it minimal, it’s still impactful for this place,” explained Iwami.
“For me, I’m a surfer so I wanted to know how it would impact the wave and so far, it’s been good,” he said while crossing his fingers. “And the wave seems to break the same way.”
DAR said it does not have full numbers yet on how many coral colonies were impacted during extraction.
Videos from the boat incident back on Aug. 9 show the vessel coming into the channel between the two navigational markers. Other videos show the captain might have been maneuvering around a surfer who could have been pushed into the channel from the currents during the high surf. However, the Coast Guard said the incident remains under investigation.
“It would be good to find out what happened and share the experience so it doesn’t happen again, we could hear valuable lessons here,” Iwami said.
the Atlantis won’t comment on the captain but said in a statement, “The Discovery shuttle boat was successfully towed from Kewalo Basin Harbor last Wednesday and is currently out of the water at the Keehi Marine Center and undergoing a comprehensive inspection to determine any repairs and replacement of equipment that needs to be made. We are thankful that Discovery is in relatively good condition overall, but there is no date established yet as to when the repairs will be completed and the vessel returned to service.”
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DAR said it will process its report, calculate a fine and give it to the BLNR who will then approve or deny fines against the company.