The Whale
There was 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 ...
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 said 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.
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, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude. I pass this on to you, my friends, in the same spirit.
HUMPBACK WHALE
Megaptera novaeangliae
This most charismatic and beloved of whales was subject to centuries of intense — and eventually illegal — hunting pressure. In the days before whaling, up to 1.5 million humpbacks roamed the worldwide oceans. In the 19th and 20th centuries, these numbers were all but wiped out by commercial whaling. Today, humpbacks are tightly protected and recovering with an estimated 80,000 worldwide, though Japan plans to resume hunting of humpbacks in the next two years.