2011_SLSNZ_SurfRescueMag

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IN THE PRESS: HOW THE GISBORNE HERALD REPORTED
THE WILD WEATHER ON JULY 1 1996.
IN RURAL TOLAGA BAY, Ray Dever wears so
many hats, sometimes it’s just easier for him to go
around bare-headed. The amiable 59-year-old, a
rumbling laugh never far from his throat, is currently
a fisheries officer but spent a long stint as the solecharge
policeman in the town. As well as his surf
lifesaving duties, he’s also a volunteer fireman and
member of the coastguard.
As a teenager, Dever was one of the surf lifesaving
pioneers when Tolaga Bay campground manager
Jack Clark started patrols down the southern end of
the beach near the iconic wharf in the mid-1960s.
“We only had a reel and a line and that’s about all – it
was just a matter of getting over there and having a
whole lot of fun on the beach, while keeping an eye
on things,” Dever recalls.
“It went defunct for a few years but Eugene Paea
(Tolaga Bay’s policeman before Dever) and I kicked it
off again in the mid-80s because our kids were just
starting to play down the beach. We bought a bit of
gear off Midway – a few boards and bits and pieces –
and then added our first IRB.”
The club survived the devastation of Cyclone Bola in
1987 and two years later, after intensive fundraising,
members opened a new two-story clubhouse on the
foreshore at the northern end of the beach. Things
were looking great for the small but enthusiastic
group of volunteers.
Then, disaster. A blustery Sunday afternoon in June
1996 intensified into a gale-ridden evening, as a
fierce north-westerly wind blew down the Uawa River
valley. It knocked over power poles, left trees strewn
all over the neighbouring Tolaga Bay Golf Course and
lifted the top story off the seven-year-old surf club
and deposited it 150m out into the surf.
“It blew our building out to sea – we could see it
in the breakers for quite a while and bits of it kept
coming ashore,” Dever recounts sadly. “It was a bit
of a heart-breaker for us and we had a helluva battle
with the council over whether the building should’ve
been there in the first place. We had to start
fundraising again and put the building back up on the
hill behind, where it is now.”
The bottom level of the surf club remains as a gear
shed, with the new building 100m further back
from the beach. The freak winds that day didn’t just
damage the clubhouse, however. “Everyone had
the wind knocked out of them and it took a while to
crank it up. It’s never really gelled having the building
separate like it is now – it needs to be down on the
beach. My argument is the rugby club is in the rugby
grounds, the golf clubrooms are on the golf course
and the surf clubrooms are in the cemetery. It’s all
cemetery reserve land – you could say it’s a bit of a
dead end!”
A DAB HAND: RAY DEVER HAS BEEN A PILLAR OF
THE TOLAGA BAY COMMUNITY FOR NEARLY 50 YEARS.
PHOTO: JAMIE TROUGHTON/DSCRIBE JOURNALISM
SURF LIFE SAVING | SURF RESCUE | NOV 2011