The young humpback whale stranded on a Gold Coast beach since Tuesday night is now free.
A Palm Beach resident alerted police to the juvenile whale’s presence on the beach about 7pm on Tuesday night, and Seaworld staff and the RSPCA attended the scene.
The 15-to-20-tonne whale was stranded in only 30 centimetres of water.
More than 20 people were in the water yesterday morning trying to get the distressed eight-metre whale, thought to be two to five years old, back out to sea.
A tent was then erected over the baby whale to keep it out of the sun during the day, and rescuers waited until high tide yesterday afternoon to resume their rescue efforts.
Some surrounding sand was dug out around it with five excavators, and the whale eventually swam out to sea as a large crowd cheered.
But just as the whale started to move off yesterday afternoon, to the applause of 250 people gathered at the scene, it hit a sandbar, the Gold Coast Bulletin reports.
At one stage it was buffeted by waves and rolled on its side, blocking its blowhole.
Sea World prepared a harness and attempted to tow the whale further out.
The whale was finally freed at about 8:15 this morning, and is now back in deep water.
