Just found somewhere else:

A Story of Blessing:

If you read the front page story of the Chronicle
today, 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

I can just see that whale with a Santa hat on,
counting its blessings all the way down to Baja!