This incredible video shows the moment that a confused - and certainly lost - humpback whale found itself trapped in a harbour in California.

The 35-foot-long whale found itself stuck in the M dock at the Ventura Isle Marina and Ventura West Marina back in May 2017.

Don't worry, though - after swimming about for a while flapping and breaching the surface on several occasions, it made its way back into the open ocean in the night time, according to the harbour patrol.

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There were moments in which it actually looked a bit distressed and started to churn up sand and dirt from the bottom of the marina.

It also at one point bashed up against the docks and hit itself against a boat, narrowly missing the propeller, but - as we've told you - don't worry. It did eventually find the way back out into the seas without serious harm coming to it.

As you might imagine, trying to shepherd a huge and slightly distressed whale out of a narrow harbour is no easy task at all.

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As well as the hordes of people who gathered around the side of the docks and the marina - oh, and on top of a nearby car park, where there was obviously a fantastic view of everything happening -there were a few specialists on hand to ease the creature out.

They tried just about everything, too. The wildlife experts even went as far as to use hydrophones - speakers that are able to play sounds underwater - to try to imitate whale sounds on the other side of the harbour in the vain hope of enticing the whale to go where they wanted to and free itself in the process.

They spent four hours at it, but to no avail.

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Because of the size of the creature - which is still pretty big, whichever way you cut it - the experts deduced that the whale was a juvenile, or - at least - not fully grown.

At the time of the video being filmed, Harbourmaster John Higgins said: "It was heart-breaking. I mean, to see an animal like that - in distress - and not being able to really do anything meaningful.

"All the stuff that we were trying was exactly that, just trying the best that we could to respect the animal and not try to further agitate it."

They eventually had to abandon their efforts for the night but went away and left the hydrophone playing the whale sounds in the hope that it would leave at some point.

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When they returned the following morning, sure enough, the whale was nowhere to be seen.