More than 100 whales remain stranded on Farewell Spit, after 30 which had been re-floated on Friday came back ashore.
Rescuers estimated around 80 pilot whales were unable to be re-floated after the mass stranding of 416 whales in Golden Bay, and nearly 300 of them died.
On Saturday morning people returned to the beach, keeping the whales comfortable by covering them with damp material and buckets of water.
The rescuers hope to get the remaining whales out to sea as high tide rolls in at 11:30am.
Sara Kecaillier from Project Jonah says the pod stranded back on the beach overnight.
"We're trying to keep them cool to put water on them and turn them on their tummies so they'll be ready when the tide comes in to go out."
On Friday, more than 400 volunteers responded to desperate calls from the Department of Conservation and Project Jonah, who took to the beach to save the stranded whales.
About 50 managed to make it into deep water on Friday, leaving around 90 still stranded about 150m from the water.
It had been hoped they would re-float naturally and swim back to sea at high tide - about 11:30pm on Friday - but volunteers will try to re-float the whales again at 11am on Saturday.
"This morning 100 live whales were found stranded on Farewell Spit," Project Jonah wrote on its Facebook page.
"We have a huge team here this morning who will be keeping the whales cool, calm and comfortable until a refloat at 11am this morning."
The results of the re-float attempt will be known by 2-3 pm this afternoon.
Newshub.
