A whale has been successfully refloated after becoming stranded in shallow water on the Fife coast.
Divers at North Queensferry have successfully directed the stricken whale to safety.
An emergency operation involving British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) swung into action at East Bay just after 11am on Wednesday.
The creature, thought to be a sei or fin whale, was spotted by local residents less than 100 metres off the coast in difficulty.
Divers from both Edinburgh and Fife divisions of the BDMLR took to the water, first to assess the condition of the whale before efforts began to direct the mammal out to deeper waters.
Initial attempts to direct the 13m-long animal further out into the Forth were thought to have been successful, but the mammal resurfaced close to the bay for a second time.
North Queensferry resident Roy Taylor was the first to raise the alarm.
He said: “Myself and a neighbour noticed the whale splashing about just off the bay so immediately called the marine life rescue at 11.10am.
“They were here pretty quickly and went straight into the water while others were posted as lookouts from the shoreline.
“You could clearly see the fin out of the water as it came very close to the edge of the bay for a while.”
Eventually, divers knocking rocks together under the water and clapping managed to successfully redirect the whale away from the shore.
Paul Smith, BDMLR’s area commander for Fife and Stirling, says the rescue operation was helped by rising incoming tide and what looked to be an uninjured and healthy whale.
He told The Courier: “It was it a bit of distress and thrashing about a bit, but as I got alongside it I could see its body condition was good.
“I measured it to be 12.8m long and seemingly it was uninjured.
“Assessing the underwater conditions, it was clear the whale wasn’t beached, so a co-ordinated effort was made by several divers in the water to drive it away from danger.
“Eventually the whale headed back out into the Firth of Forth and was last spotted heading in the direction of Inverkeithing and Dalgety Bay.”
Paul says the whale will now be monitored along the Fife coastline for any signs of further difficulty.
He said: “We may find that due to the ordeal the whale is exhausted or has an injury we are not aware about.
“Therefore we’ll have spotters out in case it gets into further distress.”
Paul says there is a reasonable chance the stranded animal was the same whale found in difficulty twice before in the Forth this year.
Whale may have been in difficulty earlier this year
He added: “We can’t be 100% certain but it is similar in size to the whale stranded at South Queensferry in the summer and again at Blackness near the bridges.
“All we can do is continue to monitor the situation and hope it has swum out to deeper water.”
The rescue follows an unsuccessful attempt to refloat a minke whale stranded off the coast at Dalgety Bay in April.
