Cabo Pulmo is a marin reserve. They do not let you dive with gloves or a knife. I tried to untie the ropes but the rope had been there long enough that it was embedded into the fluke. A light attempt at pulling the rope from the flesh was painful enough to make this friendly giant lightly push me away and move me about 6 feet with its fluke. This encounter has been the high point of my diving to date. It also is the one of my biggest failures in life as I was not able to remove the rope. I believe this juvenile Grey Whale came to me out of the bule looking for help. Sadly I believe that the rope was a death sentence as there was not enough slack in the rope for the whale to grow to adulthood. There was also enough rope trailing to snag and create a drowning hazard. In the future I will skip a dive before following a park or dive operator's policy of not allowing me to dive with an important safety device such as a knife or line cutter.
