Rescue of Lucky, the Humpback Whale
The news media tends to focus on natural disasters, wars and chaos, making it easy to forget that equally dynamic and positive events continually happen. One such event invites you to not only have a critical eye of the plastics and death traps in our oceans, but also to open your heart and feel the joy of rescuing a magnificent creature.
James Moskito shared the following true story with me. When I interviewed him by phone a few days after his incredible experience, his first words to me were, “I always thought I would touch a whale, but not with a knife in my hand.”
The account below was compiled from notes I took when we chatted.
“It was a Sunday morning when we got the rescue call. A mature, female humpback whale was thrashing about in the ocean just off the coast of San Francisco. She was entangled in crab traps and struggling to survive.
By the time we reached her, she was barely moving and non-responsive. There was an oily slick on the surface caused by her exposed blubber. Another diver and I jumped in the water and snorkelled around her. We stayed a short distance away as we didn’t want to stress her out any more than she already was.
Murky from green algae, the underwater visibility was only about ten feet. When I was on the surface, I could see the whale. When I dove down, she disappeared. It was like looking through a puddle of mud. I moved a little closer to her, and the first thing I saw was her big pectoral fin. It was bigger than me! Upon further inspection, we discovered about twenty to thirty commercial nylon ropes tightly wrapped around her sides, and at least one in her mouth.
When my dive buddy and I surfaced, we noticed a rope across the top of the whale that was dug into her blubber about one and half inches. At this point, we hadn’t seen her tail, so couldn’t make an accurate assessment about whether we could save her.
We returned to the Zodiac (inflatable boat), put on our scuba tanks, and dove down next to her tail. There were about a dozen full crab traps hanging from it. They had to weigh hundreds, maybe thousands, of pounds. Entangled with the ropes around her body, she was hogtied in a hunched position. No wonder she couldn’t swim and was struggling mightily to keep her blowhole above the water so she could breathe. Without surface air, she would drown.
After signalling for my buddy to surface, I said, “Man, there’s no way we’re going to get all those ropes off. It’s going to be impossible.” I was also thinking she might start going berserk and being so close to a gigantic whale wasn’t smart. Watching her struggle wrenched my heart. Dangerous or not, we had to try to save her.
Two more divers joined us in the water, and starting with the front pectoral fins, we began cutting ropes off the whale. One diver swam under the whale and cut the tightest rope. Once that one was free, I climbed onto the top of her and cut the line digging into her blubber. I don’t know if the whale was cooperative because she was exhausted from struggling to stay afloat or if she knew we were trying to help her.
Next, we dove down to her tail and cut off about twenty ropes. It was surreal as I watched the buoys on the crab traps disappear into the abyss below. For a few seconds, I wondered whether she’d hit me with her tail. But she didn’t. Her tail went up a little, back down, and stopped. It was like the whale knew I wasn’t done cutting. That was when I noticed more ropes cutting into the blubber around her tail.
To get the leverage needed to reach and cut the ropes, I had to hold onto and push against her body. While I was sticking my knife between the ropes and blubber, I was thinking, “This whale is being so nice. It is amazing that she is allowing me to do this. She is being cooperative and must know I’m trying to help.”
When I finally cut the last rope away from her tail, I brought it to the surface and bellowed an ecstatic, “Yahoo!” The other divers surfaced, and we all shouted with joy. When I started swimming back to the Zodiac, I noticed the whale was swimming directly toward me. I thought, “Oh, God. This is revenge time!” But she stopped right in front of me, gave me a good look, and very gently nudged me. I got the sense she was thanking me. She then eyed each of the other divers the same way. After that, she dove under the water and, one by one, lifted us out of the water. It was amazing. She’d disappear, and I’d think, “Where did she go?” Without warning, one of us was going up in the air, and saying, “Whoa!” It was like being greeted by a happy dog, but the animal doing the greeting was fifty feet long!
As we were about to swim back to the Zodiac, one of the divers grabbed onto a rope that was still hanging out of the whale’s mouth. He’d pulled out about five feet when we realized we’d need to do one more cut before we could get the entire rope out.
I dove down. The whale was slowly swimming in circles. I grabbed onto the rope that was dug into her mouth as she dragged me along under water. With her an arm’s length away, I had one hand on the whale and one hand on the rope. When I glanced down toward my chest, her eye was looking right back at me, occasionally blinking and inspecting me up and down. Hoping she’d remain calm, I said, “Just one last cut. Let me get this rope, and then you’re free. And don’t get into any more crab traps. Ha. Ha. Ha. Be a good whale.”
When I managed to cut the rope, it fell away. The whale sang a deep call that vibrated through my chest cavity. She was finally completely free! Afterward, she swam around us in circles before stopping directly in front of us. One by one, she again nudged each of the divers. As we rode the Zodiac back to the dock, everyone was grinning from ear to ear.
In the moments underwater when the whale and I glanced into each other’s eyes, we bonded in a way I could not believe possible. It was life changing to have such a beautiful, meaningful and deep communion with one of the largest creatures in the world. I’ll never forget it and I will never again be the same. We named her Lucky.”
Blessings,
Hannelore
This story is included in my book Dolphins, Whales & Magical Tails