LITTLE COMPTON — Lightning can strike twice, and so can whale beachings.

For the second time in the same week, a whale has come ashore in Little Compton, the most southeastern point in the state.

On Sunday, a humpback whale ended its ocean journey just off Briggs Beach in Little Compton, between Briggs Point and Warren Point. Managers of the private beach are waiting for a high tide to carry the estimated 25-foot, 2- to 3-ton carcass higher on the beach so an excavator can dig a hole deep enough to bury it.

So far, the tides haven’t been high enough to budge the carcass.

On Tuesday, David Haffenreffer noticed another whale coming ashore near his oceanfront house between Sakonnet Point and Round Pond. The animal, thought to be an adult female pilot whale, got stuck in shallow water and tried mightily to free herself, he said.

She couldn’t, he said.

She died about five minutes later, said Jack Moran, 8, another eyewitness.

Janelle Schuh, stranding coordinator for the Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration in Connecticut, said from home on Wednesday that two whales coming ashore in the same town the same week was rare, but she chalked it up to coincidence.

The stranding team’s plan was to retrieve the whale by slipping a sling under its body and lifting it onto a truck, but at 14 feet, 3 inches and about 1,500 pounds, it proved too big.

Volunteers, bystanders, members of the stranding team and an animal trainer from the aquarium tried to roll, push or drag the whale, with the help of waves and a rope, higher up the beach, but they succeeded only in denting its tail with the rope and giving the shiny black surface of its back a few more scratches.

Assistant stranding coordinator Skip Graf, worried that the whale wouldn’t fit in the truck even if they could move it, sought a change in plan by cell phone.

While he waited for a decision, Graf used some of his time instructing bystanders. The whale didn’t show any signs of external trauma, he said. He pointed to two bumps on its underside that indicated it was a female.

The Rev. Richard DenUyl, pastor of the Congregational Church and one of the local volunteers who serve as first responders when the aquarium gets a stranding call, called it a fish, as a form of endearment although whales are actualy mammuals.

“She has a pretty face,” he said, leading a visitor with a camera into knee-deep water for a better look.

Waves swept over the dolphin-like nose, pebbles rattled back into the receding water and high tide peaked.

Graf announced a decision. The whale would be secured for the night by tying its fluke to a rock.

A veterinary team would arrive at low tide Thursday to do a necropsy and collect data required by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Then, while the tide was still low, a hole would be dug and the whale buried.

The stretch of sand, known locally as Heffenreffer’s Beach or Surfer’s Beach, has no vehicle access. How would they bury the whale?

“We have interns,” Graf said, “and shovels.”

dnaylor@projo.com