Divers Free Whale and Receive Rewards of Love

The Whale...
If you read a recent front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle, 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 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. 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 as she was thanking them.

Some 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.

Read the full story here.

ATTENTION DIVERS

2011 Schedule is now being created, if you have a pet project, know of sunken derelict vessels or marine debris, send MCII the GPS data and we will check it out. If you are a fisherman and continually are snagging the same places, send MCI those GPS coordinates and we will investigate.

January 2011 – Derelict Vessel work
February 2011 – Derelict Vessel work
March 2011 - Three day trip including two days of diving in Tavernier, Florida – March 18 - 20th - MCII will partner with the Coral Restoration Foundation of Tavernier and take 20 divers to learn coral “growing” and “planting” techniques and assist in the process. There will be some recreational diving as well. The trip is open to just the first 20 divers. We will add more trips if there is enough interest. This will be a fantastic trip both environmentally and recreationally. Others will call this eco-tourism. We will find a sponsor to fund a majority of the cost of this trip, but food and drink are on you.
April 8 - 9, 2011 – Turtlefest at Loggerhead Marine Life Center April 9, 2011. We will dive on Friday April 8th at 1:30PM in Fort Pierce to collect debris for a display at Loggerhead on the 9th. The event will be at the Marine Center on US1 just south of Juno Beach.
May 2011 – Marine debris operations TBA
June 25, 2011 – WETFEST of Water, Energy and Education - A national event that will focus on watershed issues and marine pollution and cleanup. The event will feature organizations interested and involved with water and energy issues combined with food, fun, music and drinks.
July 16, 2011 – Annual Inlet Maintenance Cleanup Dives in Sebastian and Fort Pierce as listed on www.marinecleanupinitiativeinc.org.