Chip Fletcher guides his coring drill to the precise spot to bore a hole for a mooring pin while giving him a sample of the seabed off Keaau Beach Park.

But Waianae lifeguard Capt. Brian Keaulana has ridden 20-foot winter waves and has rescued people from deadly currents and wild surf at Makaha. He is convinced that the moorings can be a death trap in winter for boaters and surfers.

Two years ago a surfer nearly drowned while surfing the Makaha Bowl when he wiped out and became entangled in the line of an illegal mooring. And Keaulana has seen dive boats nearly capsize when the surf jumped from 2 feet to 12 feet in a few hours.

But ultimately, he supports the permanent mooring program.

"The common bond we all have is that we care about this place and don't want to break up the reef and coral, which supports our marine life and surf," Keaulana said.

"If you don't put moorings out here, they will break up the reef and destroy commercial fishermen's livelihood and destroy recreational areas."

Fletcher shows off a core sample taken from the ocean floor off Makaha that will be studied for the geological history of the islands.

In the same symbiosis that allows coral polyps and algae to create coral reefs, state, city and private volunteers are working together to save the reefs from being destroyed.

At Waianae Boat Harbor, University of Hawaii graduate students and state employees worked like a line of busy ants passing air tanks, diving gear, mooring equipment and the star of the show: UH marine geologist Chip Fletcher's coring drill.

Lee Rodgers guided his heavily loaded Rainbow Diver II boat to precise coordinates so volunteers could implant 15 moorings at Stars off Keaau Beach Park, the Land of Oz off Makaha Point, Makaha Caverns, Ulua Cave and Ammo Reef.

The divers moved with the precision of a surgical team to locate the least intrusive spot among the mosaic of coral on the ocean floor, drill the holes and cement the steel mooring pins into place with a plunger.

Keaulana and other Waianae lifeguards arrived aboard a WaveRunner rescue vehicle, providing a lifetime of experience and intimate knowledge of the area to help place the moorings in the safest and most effective sites.

After three hours of painstaking work, two pins had been installed. For the next three years, Beach Divers and other dive operators will transport UH students to study how the moorings affect the area's coral, endangered species and other marine organisms.

Rodgers sacrificed a day of dive charters to haul volunteers around; other dive companies will take their turn.

"I'm real broke, but I can do this instead of putting out money like some of the other dive groups have done to buy buoys," Rodgers said.

"We do whatever we can."

Material for each mooring costs $250, and the value of the labor is beyond calculation. To help, call the nonprofit Malama Kai Foundation at 325-0128; the state volunteer program at 587-0393; or the Adopt-a-Buoy program at 1-800-345-4807 or 329-7585.

A group of tour operators and fishermen met last week to decide where to place moorings off Lanai's pristine reefs, with the help of a drill that Navatek has bought and loaned to the project.

David Rubin seals the anchor pin with concrete dumped by a fellow volunteer through a makeshift plunger of PVC tubing.

And more will be needed.

"Because it took so much time to get the federal permits, new anchoring sites are being used that weren't on the original list, and old, unused sites have been rediscovered and are being heavily used," said Athline Clark, who coordinated the mooring project for the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

To make sure they had the support of the whole Waianae community, Clark and Waianae harbor master William Aila met with dive operators, lifeguards, fishermen, surfers and commercial fishermen to hammer out a basic understanding of what the moorings should look like and where they could be placed to avoid threatening people, nets, boats and other property.

"We wanted to make sure the whole community understood and put their stamp of approval on them before we put them in," said Clark, who will continue to oversee the project in her new job with the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

When Keaulana voiced concerns that the buoys off Makaha Caverns would be a threat to boats and surfers, the dive operators agreed to not attach underwater buoys to the pins and not use the moorings during the winter.

"This has brought all the commercial dive operators together, and for the first time these fierce competitors have worked together for a common goal," Aila said.

"It's also the first time we've had fishermen and dive operators using the same resource with cooperation instead of the usual confrontation.

"That is really exceptional."