Bummer. The sun's just come up, so I hope they can help this whale out ASAP. π€
#Whales π³
Update:
Looks like they've untangled a lot of it because the whale's charging around at speed now, but it's still trailing gear so they're working on attaching buoys closer and closer to the whale so they can cut it free.
It's only a very small juvenile humpback so it's pretty nimble and is leading them on quite a chase.
Update:
They're very close now. You can see one strand of rope wrapped around the whale's tail when it breaches, which is good because they'll only need to cut through that to set it free, but they'll want to get right up close and that's gonna be tough in a small inflatable boat with a whale's tail moving around.
Update:
They had to drop back to get more buoys, but they're working their way back up the rope now.
The whale's staying on the surface now, and the rope is clearly visible as the rescuers work their way up it. They're gonna do it. The only question is whether any of them end up in the water with the whale.
Update:
Unfortunately, none of the other free-to-air networks appear to have anything in the air right now, and there's a big exclusion zone to protect the whale so there're no boats nearby.
There is a cable news network, but it belongs to the evil Murdochs, so I don't have it. And I don't think they have a chopper anyway, which is good because they'd probably try to harpoon the whale or something.
Update:
Fair dinkum, this is frustrating. It's 2024, and every man and his dog has a drone with 4K HD video capability, but you have to listen to the local am radio station to hear a reporter phoning in the status of a whale rescue. π
They just had a bloke on from National Parks & Wildlife, and he says it's all going to plan. They're trying to hang on until the whale tires a bit more so they can get close enough to cut the rope without having their Zodiac flipped over.
Been a while since Iβve heard anyone say βfair dinkumβ. ππ
Ozzies never used it with me but a fair bit with one another. π
Yeah, in my experience a lot of us have an outside voice for public consumption and an inside voice that's a bit more ocker and mostly comes out when we're frustrated or in our natural habitats like sportsball games or the pub π
"Fair dinkum" is very much in the latter, and it's a bit old-fashioned too. π