September 7, 2010
FW: Saved The Whale
(FEF Editor: Snopes.com says this is true)
If you had read a recent front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle (Dec 14, 2005) you would have known about a female humpback whale that had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines.
She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of crab traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, and a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate ) and radioed an environmental group for help.
They worked for hours with curved knives to free her. Just one slap of her tail could kill a rescuer. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles.
“When the whale realized it was free, it began swimming around in circles…Moskito said it swam to each diver, nuzzled him and then swam to the next one. “It felt to me like it was thanking us, knowing that it was free and that we had helped it. It stopped about a foot away from me, pushed me around a little bit and had some fun. It seemed kind of affectionate, like a dog that’s happy to see you,” Moskito said, “I never felt threatened. It was an amazing unbelievable experience.”
“You hate to anthropomorphize (the attribution of human characteristics to non-human creatures) too much, but the whale was doing little dives and the guys were rubbing shoulders with it, Mick Menigoz said. “I don’t know for sure what it was thinking, but it’s something that I will always remember.”
He said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth said her eyes were following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.
May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you. And, if so, may you of giving and receiving gratitude.