A humpback whale was freed after being stranded on a sandbar along New South Wales’s Mid North Coast on Tuesday, April 14.

Video from the Sea World Foundation shows its crew helping the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), the Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORRCA), and the Forster Dive Centre to refloat the juvenile.

The foundation said the nine-metre whale entered the Coolongolook River near Forster late Sunday before becoming stranded on the sandbar on Monday afternoon.

Sea World Foundation’s head of marine sciences, Wayne Phillips said it was a mammoth effort, but it was great to see the whale swimming in the deeper channel where it’s hoped it will navigate its way back to the open ocean.

📸 Credit: Sea World Foundation via Storyful