Water. Boats sail on it, and it was early in January we learnt that the biggest boat of them all, the Ovation of the Seas, was already fully booked with 4180 passengers for its first visit to New Zealand, and Napier.
At the time the 348m long maritime mammoth was still to be launched, and it was a year before it was due in Napier (January 5, 2017, at 7.30am).
Water was needed in abundance on January 15, when temperatures rose to as high as 34deg. A scrub fire in hillside area Poraiti near Taradale resulted in one of the biggest mobilisations of firefighters in Hawke's Bay in years. Three helicopters were used to bomb the blaze, and several homes were evacuated.
A shipment of water caused some consternation for fledgling bottled water exporter Miracle, which had opened in Hastings in October 2015.
It was revealed on January 21 that a shipment had been returned because it didn't meet the stringent purity requirements prevailing in China - specifically 0.005mg a litre of nitrite, a mere 2.5 per cent of the 0.2mg litre allowed in New Zealand.
The water from above was the problem on January 27-28 when heavy rain caused the cancellation of a cricket international between the Black Caps and Pakistan.
Being a day-night game, the umpires gave it plenty of time, before declaring about 7pm that the black clouds had won the day, and everybody could go home - including the two people still on the embankment with umbrellas.
Napier man Dean Young used a whole ocean full of water to land a 136.6kg marlin on the opening day of his Hawke's Bay Sports Fishing Club's Mega Fish tournament. It was big enough to also land a $48,000 Isuzu ute as the biggest marlin over 125k in the three-day competition.
But it also landed him in some hot water as the promoter who jacked-up the prize questioned the legality of the catch, even submitting Mr Young to a lie-detector test, an irony considering his former career as a detective.
But it was one big one that wasn't going to get away, and ultimately the sponsor stepped in to make sure the ute was handed over, without hooks.
Water also played havoc with the Taradale High School swimming sports on February 17, called off when pupils at the pool in Hastings - memo Napier City Council, big pool needed in Napier - started getting sick. At least 20 were affected.
It was a big year for councils, with the triennial local government elections ahead. One of the first signs that election year was under way - the council entities preserved by the rejection of amalgamation the previous September - was when Hastings councillor Adrienne Pierce announced she would be standing for district mayoralty.
Several music industry icons were to pass on, one of them being in Napier with Alec Wishart, frontman of the hugely popular 1970s group Hogsnort Rupert's Original Flagon Band. Wishart, who lived in Hawke's Bay for many years, died on January 22, almost a fortnight after the passing of contemporary David Bowie.
February was the usual biggest month of the year in Napier, with Art Deco Week coming to its peak on February 20-21, and the following weekend Simply Red reviving the Mission Concert, which had been canned in 2015.
Sadly, crime and people's misadventure featured repeatedly, but there was a positive flick in one tale, when Hastings man Joshua Whyman was reunited with his yellow mo-ped, which had been stolen four year earlier.
Moving on then ... A warning for 2017. The Geological Society has tagged it the The Year of Risk.