posted January 27, 2006 01:56 PM         

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Whale Rescue - A Story of Blessing

Source: SF Chronicle
Published: Jan 6, 2006

If you read the front page story of the SF Chronicle
today--Thu, Dec
15, 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 100s of pounds of traps that caused
her to struggle
to stay afloat. She had 100s 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 few rescuers.
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 them gently around - she
thanked them... some
say it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of
their lives.
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.

posted January 31, 2006 07:15 AM         

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