The sea at Woonona looked harmless enough on the Saturday night news, as the breaking tragedy of Stephen Fa'alua Mote's death was broadcast.
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But Mr Fa'alua Mote's fiancee knew better.
Fordene MacDonald was among family members who made a desperate dash into the deceptive blue earlier Saturday evening as her large, blended family's world was turned upside down.
Mr Fa'alua Mote's son and niece had been taken by a rip. The father-of-four went in to save them, only for the children to live, and for him to die.
He was among 19 of the large, loving Maori family from Campbelltown to make the trip to the Illawarra on Saturday. His bewildered fiancee has now been left trying to explain to loved ones how a fun day at the beach went so devastatingly wrong.
"That's something that one of the relatives said - 'how did this happen? It [the sea] was so calm?'," Ms MacDonald, a mother of five, told the Mercury.
"I said, 'no, it wasn't calm. I was struggling just to get to him. We were getting twisted and pulled and pushed. It was calm when he left us. But it wasn't calm out there."
Ms MacDonald had been minding the family's belongings on the sand when she heard someone screaming "float on your back!" and realised some of the 12 children in their family group were in trouble in the water.
She went into the sea for them, but ended up in a cluster of would-be rescuers at her fiance's side, trying in vain to lift him to safety.
Her eldest sons, aged 16 and 18, worked to keep his head above water, with one going under then pushing off the bottom of the ocean floor to try and propel Mr Fa'alua Mote up.
"My mum's passed, so [while swimming out] with every breath I prayed - I said, 'mum'," Ms MacDonald said.
Bystanders and local boardriders joined the effort, bringing a floating esky lid, then a surfboard, then another, better board to eventually bring Mr Fa'alua Mote to shore.
"He was in between two boards, between my two sons, and every other community member out there that was surrounding us with boards," Ms MacDonald said.
"I need them to know how thankful we are. How really thankful we are. Particularly the ones that stayed there, and the one who got me on his board. I'm so grateful.
"I don't know if there's any bigger word than 'thankyou'. The ambulance, the cops, the hospital, the nurses, the community, the lifeguards - they were awesome, they were compassionate, they had so much empathy, the community did."
The 41-year-old was pulled unconscious from the water. Ms MacDonald lay at his feet as paramedics took turns performing CPR and then pulsing him with a defibrillator.
"All the aunties and uncles were there with me. I knew [the children] were all safe because we did our count check. They were not fine mentally or emotionally, but they were out of the water, so I focused on Stephen.
"They did one, two [attempts with the defibrillator] - that's when I knew he wasn't going to wake up, and that's when I wailed out to the ocean."
Six other adults and three children were assessed by paramedics before the children were taken to hospital in a stable condition.
Speaking on Monday, Ms MacDonald remembered her New Zealand-born fiance as a big-hearted "teddy bear" of a man, whose world centred around his whanau (family).
She said the water was for healing, in Maori culture, and that she would think of the mythological god of the ocean as she attempted to make sense of the tragedy.
"Tangaroa [the god] - that's who took my man."
Friends have set up a gofundme to help support Mr Fa'alua Mote's family with the costs of his funeral.
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