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Whale Beached in Sinclair Bay. Photo credit: Sue and Larry Shieffelbein
By Zach Houtenville
A stranded whale made its way back to sea after hours of care at Sinclair Bay on Sunday 4th October, with local couple Larry and Sue Shieffelbien helping wildlife officers through the lengthy rescue.
For Larry, the day began around 6am with a morning coffee at Sinclair Bay Resort. Looking out over the beach, he noticed what appeared to be a large branch washed up on the shore. But as the tide receded, a fin appeared, prompting him and his wife, Sue, to wander down for a closer look.
Up close, they realised it was a roughly four metres long whale.
“It was still blowing through his blowhole, so I kind of felt that it was still alive and healthy, just stranded,” Larry said.
The couple reported the stranding to Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and got to work while waiting for officers to arrive.
For the next hour, Larry and Sue stayed beside the whale, shading it with an umbrella and keeping the towels covering it wet.
“They said to put towels over the whale, which is exactly what we did until they turned up,” Larry said.
The officers’ arrival marked the start of a long wait for the tide to change, with the team sheltering the whale beneath a gazebo and continuing to keep it wet throughout the day.
“They seemed to know what they were doing and just nursed it the whole remaining six or seven hours until the tide was coming back in,” Larry said.
Even then, the whale’s path to freedom was far from straightforward.
The relief of seeing the whale swim again was short-lived, with Larry recalling how the animal turned back towards shore and became stranded again further along the bay.
Officers Tim and Ben kept working to guide it beyond the sandbar, until it finally reached deeper water and swam out to sea at around 3pm.
‘It was a good feeling to see it go and to have helped save an animal, save a life,” Larry said.
“Tim and Ben, the two main guys from the wildlife people, they were awesome,” Larry said.
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