The Whale

If you read the front page story of the SF Chronicle, Thu, 15 Dec 2005, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines.

She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her ...a very dangerous proposition.

One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed gently around-she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.

One of the divers, James Moskito, said the whale was peaceful during the hour or so it took him and others to cut the ropes and there was a vibration coming from the whale the whole time. Moskito said that when the whale realized it was free it began swimming in circles. ""It felt to me like it was thanking us, knowing that it was free and that we had helped it," Moskito said., "It stopped about a foot away from me, pushed me around a little bit and had some fun." He said the whale nuzzled him, then swam to each of the other rescuers as well.

The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.