As I swam through another thick garbage patch while herding a cloud of plankton, I couldn't help but think of when these very waters were clear. Of when I could see the ocean floor beneath sun streaked waves; when Maleko and I would glide through the sunny rays until we were over the reef.

I used to love this reef. I used to love gliding between coral mountains, wings dipping into valleys as I curved my body and tail to follow the channel, fish fluttering around and underneath me, feeding on my belly and wing bottoms, tickling me with their tails and fins. Glorious colors and light surrounding.

But now it was gone. Reduced to ashy gray silt. Reduced to slime and algae-covered lumps in the sand.

Swimming on, feeling more sorrowful after the memories of Maleko, I was hit with another, even deeper wave of sadness when I recognized the very spot where my last pup was birthed. He had been gloriously beautiful, with his white tipped wings and white markings matching his father's.

Maleko decided to call him Kaimana, power of the ocean. And that he was. Impressively powerful, mightily strong. None could doubt his beauty.

He grew to become only stronger, so much so that even the mano kihikihi feared trying to eat him. He quickly fought off the mano miona when he tried to attack him, and no other sharks bothered him after that.

He spent his days frolicking in these shallow waters, curving and flipping and basking in the sun. I loved visiting him and watching him grow. Maleko held only endless pride and praise for his son, our son, who was stronger than both of us.

But maybe as his Makuahine, I was biased. Because I can never forget how strongly he fought. How strongly he held on to life against mangled, mutated jaws around him, tearing into him, into his beautiful wings, grinding between his ribs. The cracks still echo through these ocean's waters.

And now look. Look what his childhood home has turned into. 'Opala suspended in once blue waters, once hopeful, once beautiful, once clear waters, where futures were visible. Now this he wai e ola was filthy with human garbage and human oil and human silt stirred up by human boats. Once colorful reefs filled with colorful l'a had dissolved into nothingness. Gray brown silt-covered lumps were the only indication that life had ever thrived here.

A rumble resounding through the water around me woke me from my reminiscent thoughts. Glancing up, I saw yet another dark shape indicative of a human boat in the water above. I didn't bother worrying about fishermen, just dove deeper to hide below their own 'opala from their sharp tipped mea kaua.

I finally grew wary when a splash disturbed the garbage and a dark figure began to move in the dirty water. Long tendrils floated behind its leading end. I wanted to scream maka'u at it, but it was a human, not a l'a that could understand me and could understand that having uncontrolled tendrils like that floating in this water could easily lead to death.

But the human didn't concern itself with danger. Instead it was reaching out and removing its own garbage from the water. It was targeting the dangerous garbage that brought down honu and manu. I suddenly found myself closer to the human than intended, intrigued by its actions. The garbage in its oddly strong appendages was disappearing above the surface of the water, pulled by invisible lines.

Suddenly, it turned to me and its odd face, tubes and garbage wrapped around and into it, covering eyes and nose and mouth, stared back at me. It approached me slowly and I was intrigued.

I felt a hand on my fin, holding me in place, and another hand hovered near my head, tugging the string long embedded by a fisherman's weapon. A silver flash, like that of a fish, and I was already more free. Its skillful appendage untangled the string that had wrapped around my fin digging in over time, scarring me like the monstrous mano, no longer a mano, that took Kaimana from me. I was finally freed. After Kane knows how long, I was free! Another flash with a sharp pain and the hook was gone from my head.

Ola leaked into the water near my eyes, and pain blossomed, but I could care less. This human had freed me, unlike the human that had tried to take me with my Maleko. Maybe this human, with its 'olapa removal and soft hands brushing me, wasn't the same as the rest of them.