Papamoa lifeguards Tuesday training turned into a rescue mission for a stranded bottlenose dolphin found near the clubhouse.

Club coach Matt Cairns says the lifeguards were already in wetsuits when they were told about the stranded dolphin by a member of the public.

A bottlenosed dolphin, similar to the one pictured, washed up on Papamoa Beach on Tuesday. Photo: Nathan Pettigrew.

'A member of the public shot up and told us, we were about to train so luckily a bunch of my squad were already in their wetsuit gear.”

It was just before 5pm and the dolphin 'a big beast, a big grey one” between 2.5 to 3m long was in about six inches of water about 400m right (east) of the clubhouse.

Surf conditions were quite messy, says Matt.

'It has just turned to a strong onshore, and at Papamoa for the last little while particularly at low tide, there's been a sandbank and it was getting quite heavy breaking on the sandbank. That's where we found the dolphin.

'To me it looked like it had been washed through the heavy breakers onto the sand bank. So rather than try and fight back across the heavy break, we moved it probably 50 meters further east into a little rip.”

It took two attempts because a heavy set of waves came through the first time they got it to deep enough water.

'It turned itself back around, but because we were still watching it we kind of cut it off before it got too shallow again,” says Matt.

'We turned it back around and we sort of held onto it until we got deep enough and we thought it was a bit but calmer, for it to head out and it headed across sideways.”

Matt says the dolphin didn't appear to be injured.

'We had five of us for a start and we couldn't really get it moving. We started off only moving it a foot at a time and as it got deeper, we were able to move it a bit more.

'The other thing, the waves kept rolling it over, so we had to keep it upright as well.

'We had to be quite careful, obviously with its fins sticking out the side,” says Matt.

'It was a bit cautious of us at the start and then it sort of started to let us work with it.”

The lifesavers had one phone on the beach and it was being used to relay to their club's administrator who was on the phone to the Department of Conservation.

The rescue took about twenty minutes, and the size of the mammal meant it took everyone who turned up.

They started with the seven senior sports squad members, a person Matt thinks lived nearby turned up wearing a wet suit and a couple of additional club members who chanced it in their clothes.

None of them though about taking photos while they were involved, says Matt.

He thinks a woman accompanying one of the dog walkers may have taken photos.

'The club really appreciated the support of the members of the public that were there.”

On Department of Conservation advice they did a tour of the beach just on dusk to see if the dolphin had re-stranded, but there was no sign of it.

'We did a bit of a mission for about three quarters of an hour after,” says Matt.

'It was such a big beast, if it had washed up again we are pretty comfortable we would have seen it.”

Matt says the squad members were still buzzing at swimming the next morning.

'It was pretty cool, they were some of our newer lifeguards a few of them and they were pretty cool under pressure, handled things well, worked as a team.”