Place of Refuge (Pu'uhonua O Hōnaunau National Historical Park)

It was in 2011 when I last dove this site and it nearly breaks my heart to see how much the site has deteriorated in these short 6 years. I vividly remember the colorful giant mushroom coral heads and all of the life that lived around this once, healthy reef system. This reef is no longer healthy with heavy mortality and much bleaching. We went there on a Monday and there were easily 150 people hanging out, snorkeling and two other divers. The other divers rejected the idea that the destruction of this reef could be a result of changing pH values and warmer temperatures, instead blaming it on a sewage leak this past summer (2017) near Kailua-Kona. They then proceeded to tell me the reef has really deteriorated over the last 2 years (?). We saw similar problems to varying degrees on every other dive site all the way up to Puako. There are small, widely space coral heads that seem to be resistant and we did notice that areas that are getting heavily washed by the surf still seem mostly healthy even though they are quite shallow. I'm not going to review any more sites from this trip. It's too depressing. I will say this though, if you care about these reefs, you better get involved trying to change things before they only exist as a memory or photo.