After a long rescue, whale thanks its rescuer

Imagine a giant humpback whale swimming up at you from underneath the water. Would you be afraid? James Moskito, a volunteer and professional diver, had this exact experience following the hours-long rescue of a trapped whale off the coast of San Francisco, Calif., according to SFGate. 
Moskito and a crew of volunteers arrived on site, in December of 2005, to discover the whale trapped in a massive tangle of rope. "I was the first diver in the water, and my heart sank when I saw all the lines wrapped around it," Moskito told SFGate. 
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In the video at the end of the article, Moskito described the whale as "cooperative" during the five hours it took to free her from what amounted to a 3,000-pound anchor, according to White Shark Video.
"Some of the individual ropes went into the blubber two or three inches deep. I put my hand on the whale and I told the whale, 'OK. This is gonna hurt.' The whale was so cooperative, it would open its mouth and a guy would put his hand up inside of it and pull pieces of rope out of the baleen, one by one," Moskito said. 
After the whale was completely free, he swam next to the volunteers, rubbed up against them and dove underwater. Then he came back. Swimming to the surface, he approached Moskito and rubbed up against him in a move of affection, according to Moskito. 
Moskito later told Anita Bartholomew, "Out of the 26 years I spent in the military doing high-risk and other rescues, there's been nothing more gratifying than this rescue. Nothing." 
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