A rare sight is being described as something of a miracle for one Waiheke Island resident.

Jesse Rudolph says he and his colleagues were some of the lucky few who witnessed a waterspout off Rakino.

Waterspouts are tornado-like formations which occur above water.

'I hadn't seen one before, put it that way.”

He says the team were working at site when he spotted the water spout over the water.

'I was having a chat to one of the boys, and past his head I spotted what I thought was what you seen when a jet flies over.

'I was looking at it and sort of lost conversation, my eyes followed it down to its end and the water just erupted. I could see it was sucking up water.

'It was cool, we were working on a cliff top so we had a clear view, and it was very beautiful.”

He says he filmed a video of the spout which has since attracted widespread attention online.

'I thought I'd post it to the Waiheke Community page to see if anyone else had gotten any pictures, people were pretty surprised it was cool.”