Mayor Island
aka Cyclone Fergus
Prelude to a Cyclone
We traveled to Mayor Island on 27 December 1996 in a fishing boat. Present
were me, Brendan, Trudy, John, Darryn, Karlene and Eugenie. Being the
middle of summer we were expecting (or rather hoping) for brilliant weather,
and a nice relaxing holiday of tramping, swimming, snorkeling and lazing.
Mayor Island is an extinct volcanic island off the East coast of New Zealand
(between Whangamata and Tauranga). In one of the bays is a camping ground
with cabins, room for tents and basic facilities like toilets and showers,
which was where we were staying. To start with the weather was very nice,
but the day after we arrived we woke up to overcast skies. That day we went
for a tramp up to the trig station (a very steep walk). On our way up it
rained a few times, but it didn't rain again that day, so we were hoping for
an improvement the next day.
29 December 1996
We awoke to find that the day was dreary - little improvement on the day before. We decided however to proceed with our planned walk, which was to a hot water beach that some fellow walker had informed us about the day before. Before we left though, we had to sort out our rain coat problem. Being the middle of summer, a few members of our party hadn't come prepared with adequate rain gear (some Scouts!) so we had to distribute what was available. After that was completed, we went to inquire about where the hot water was to be found - the far end of the beach we were told. As we started off, the weather wasn't too bad, but it didn't take too long to deteriorate. The rain was coming steadily down by the time we reached Honeymoon Bay, where we decided to stop for lunch. We squeezed under a hollow in a cliff which gave some of us a little bit of shelter, but all in all we mostly just got wetter. By the time lunch was over we were getting nice and wet, and a bit miserable. We tramped on though, determined to succeed in our pursuit of hot water.
The rain had eased a bit by the time we reached the hot water beach. We
wandered to the end of the beach and deposited our packs under a tree (the
semblance of shelter), and sat ourselves down on a bank. The unpleasant
combination of sweat from our exercise and dampness from the rain didn't
make us very comfortable, and all we could do was sit there and complain
about the weather. Nobody seemed very keen on getting their feet wet to
look for the hot water, but I had taken my boots off anyway (for relief of
my feet), and I was among the most enthusiastic on the hot water front, so I
took a bit of a paddle and dug my feet into the sand. It didn't take long
for a few others (Karlene and Darryn) to come and join in the fun, but we
didn't have much success to start with. We had just about given up when
Karlene told me to try the beside the rock with a greenish tinge (some
sulphur-volcanic theory). I squished my feet into the sand, and to my
surprise I thought the sand was slightly more warm at this spot. I yelled
out to the others my discovery. I wasn't quite sure whether the effect was
just a numbing of my feet, so I got Karlene and Darryn to try it too. They
confirmed it. The three of us stood with our feet buried in the sand and
shouted to the others to come join us. They were a bit dubious at first,
not quite believing us - after all Darryn does have a reputation for this
kind of joke. We soon convinced them and they came to see what the fuss was
about. Soon discovery after discovery was made and we were scattered around
desperately digging our feet into the sand after the elusive hot water. Due
to the low barometric pressure (of which we were at this stage unaware), the
low tide was actually quite high, so our pursuit of hot water was quite
dangerous. Every time a decent sized wave came to shore, we scampered for
our lives back onto the beach. Not everyone was successful in this - if our
attention wandered for a moment we found the bottoms of our shorts getting
nasty splashes (just to add to our miserable inconvenience). Trudy got the
worst of this and got hit by a very big wave which totally drenched her
shorts.
In a while Darryn found a really really good hot spot (although to tell the truth we didn't quite trust him at first). We all clustered around, shuffling our tootsies into the sand - our legs freezing cold but our feet either nice and warm, scorching hot or just numb. The tide didn't seem to be dropping any lower, contrary to our expectations, so after a while most got a bit fed up and wandered off. Karlene, Darryn and I were the last of the sand diggers, but finally we decided to part from the nice hot water.
On our way back to the camp the weather got worse than ever. The rain got steadier and steadier, and we arrived back at the campsite glad of a nice hot shower. After dinner we retired to the recreation room for a bit of card playing and alcohol drinking. This was a pleasant time, nice and sheltered from the nasty weather. At about 9.45 we were told by fellow occupants to hurry up and get out since the lights would be out by 10. This wasn't pleasant news to us. I personally thought we should stay and play by torch light, but the others seemed to want to go to bed. As we were packing ourselves up, a woman approached and gave us tidings of an cyclone - apparently hitting the East Coast of New Zealand at 3am this morning. This sounded like very bad news - you can imagine the images of destruction conjured up by the word "cyclone" (as the clock strikes 3.00 in the morning, a dark cloud covers the island accompanied by a howling wind which up roots trees and lifts roofs and basically destroys everything in its path). I however, being a bit more enlightened, was very skeptical and tried to get the others to see sense (after all a cyclone is just an area of low pressure - a bit of a storm). I knew that media reports were probably blowing this thing out of proportion. On our way back to the tents, the woman who looks after the camp also came to warn us of the dreaded cyclone and offered us a cabin. At the present moment, the weather wasn't very nice (a bit of a wind, yucky rain), but we didn't see any danger to our tents, to we decided to stick it out for the night. If it got too bad, she said we could always take a cabin in the middle of the night. After retiring to our tents, we packed an evacuation bag just in case. I - being a natural optimist - convinced myself that we would be fine. We had a pretty good tent anyway, and I was determined not to stray from it unless it was on the verge of blowing away. So we went to sleep to the sounds of the patter of rain and the flap flap of the tent walls in the wind, wondering what horrible things would arrive at 3am..
30th December 1997
The morning came and our tents were still standing. The rain and wind didn't sound any worse than the night before. I was in a "told you so" frame of mind, secure in my knowledge that the cyclone was a non event. We turned on the radio to hear the weather report, and found that everyone was talking about the approaching cyclone! I had thought that it had been and gone, but apparently it was still coming. This wasn't great news. The others had pretty much decided to go for an evacuation (a few tents were filling up with water), so I reluctantly joined them. We turned our radio on to talk back, and found that most of NZ was talking about the approaching tropical cyclone. It was named Fergus, and it was heading towards the country. They had now decided that it was going to arrive sometime in the evening. The fact that it was actually an ex-cyclone and had been recategorised a deep depression (since it was no longer in the tropics) didn't stop everyone calling it a cyclone. After all, depression doesn't really have the same disastrous ring as Cyclone.
We spent the morning lugging the contents of our tents into an allocated
cabin (free of charge - lucky us) and getting very very wet. We also took
the poles of our tents down, scared of them getting ripped in the wind. The
rain increased during the morning - by lunch time it was being blown in very
hard (like needles on our legs as Darryn said). Our cabin - facing right
into the wind was also getting very wet with people coming in and out and
from under the door. By the time we had finished our evacuation the cabin
was like a swimming pool. We stripped ourselves of our very wet clothes
(and put some dry ones on), and did our best to dry the cabin up. We also
put a towel under the door to prevent further rain flowing in. This done,
we had lunch and settled down for a very wet and windy afternoon stuck in a
cabin. We still had the radio on, and they were still talking about the
cyclone. Peter Montgomery was getting very excited about it, which of
course made us excited too. The cyclone was now due to be arriving at
around midnight. We felt like we were in the middle of a national disaster.
The words "Civil Defense State of Emergency" weren't very reassuring. We
felt ourselves to be in the prime position for getting the brunt the
cyclone, which was heading towards the East Coast of New Zealand. The bay
in which we were situated was also facing right into the direction of the
wind. A few thoughts crossed our mind like what would happen in a medical
emergency - there was no way any boats or helicopters would get in. We were
stranded! We also started to think that maybe our parents were getting a
bit worried (with all this hype), so we had a few excursions with Darryn's
cellphone to reassure them we were safe enough (for now).
I just about forgot to mention that it was my 22nd birthday! A cyclone
isn't the birthday of choice for many people, but at least I had a memorable
day.
During the afternoon we started to get worried about the high tide. High
tide was meant to be about 10.30pm, and the cabin was very close to the
beach. We heard that during Cyclone Bola the tide washed right up to the
cabins. If it happened again, it could mean a very wet cabin. With this in
mind we got everything off the ground, and hoped we wouldn't get washed
away. We had a few interesting conversations about what we would do in a
tidal wave - hide in the shower? (that way the water could all go down the
plug hole!) In the late afternoon we had a bit of drama unfold. One of the
boats in the bay had flipped right over due to the huge waves coming in.
Our 3 strong boys went out in the pouring rain, howling wind and wet sea to
help them rescue this boat, and to bring in the other boat anchored in the
bay. They decided to bring them right up onto the shore, scared they would
be wash into the rocks. This was a very difficult task, and our 3 boys got
very wet. They deserved a nice shower afterwards, and we managed to find
some dry clothes (though they were becoming a rarity at this point).
As it got dark we stared out the window at the waves. They were getting
closer and closer to us and we feared the worse. By 9 however it was too
dark to see much more. They were not quite reaching the top of the beach and
they didn't look like they were getting any higher, but we had to quit our
watch and hope we didn't get swept away in the middle of the night.
We got into bed at about 9.30 - there wasn't much to do in the tiny cabin
(we had exhausted cards during the afternoon). Just after we got to bed
there was another drama outside. We heard people talking and saw torch
lights. Being a bit nosy we looked out to see what was happening and
discovered a little blue penguin had come ashore for the night. This was
great excitement for us. We felt for the poor little penguin who had no
doubt been swimming all day through the harrowing waves in quest of shelter
and had finally found it on this island (only to be harassed by loud men
with torches). Trudy wanted to take in the little penguin (who we named
Fergus) and give it a saucer of warm milk. Brendan informed us that
penguins don't actually drink milk, but this didn't deter Trudy. She wanted
to take it into her sleeping bag and cuddle it.
At about 10pm as we were laying in the dark the rain suddenly stopped, and the winds died right down.
31st December 1997
The next morning (new years eve) was beautifully sunny - no clouds in the
sky, no wind. The sunshine streamed through the window. It was hard to
believe there had been a cyclone just the night before. I had to say "told
you so", because I had always maintained that the morning would bring a
wonderfully fine day (call me optimistic). We surveyed the damage, and
found that the camp was littered with debris from trees. Our tents hadn't
blown away, but they were very wet and covered with branches and dirt. It
was a bit of a job cleaning them out and putting them back up. We also had
to find places to dry our very wet clothes (there wasn't much room left to
put up clothes lines since everyone else had wet clothes too) as well as go
and wash our very dirty ones. We spent the morning re-establishing
ourselves in our tents and sorting our stuff out as best we could. The
weather stayed wonderful, so the afternoon was spent lazing on the beach by
some and doing the round the island tramp by the rest.
Epilogue to a Cyclone
The nice weather didn't last into the next day, but at least the seas calmed down enough for a boat to cross. This was very lucky for Trudy and John who had to get out of the island - they had a plane to catch. The rest of us stayed on for another day. The weather didn't improve the next day either - the island was covered with an unpleasant misty rain. It was a contrast to the stormy weather of a few days ago, but made us a bit miserable - not the weather you expect on a summer holiday. We took the boat back to Whangamata, and stayed in Onemana for another two nights. Those few days were a big consolation - the weather was lovely, just perfect for laying on the beach, which was all we wanted to do after the recent drama.
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