Police have named a 43-year-old One Tree Point woman who drowned after saving her children from surf near Marsden Pt.
She was Fiona Eileen Gooder.
Police said when the children got into trouble in the water about 11.30am on Saturday the woman and a friend had gone in to rescue them.
The friend and the children had reached the shore, but the woman had got out of her depth. A tourist, seeing she was struggling, had entered the water and dragged her on to the beach. When St John paramedics arrived, the woman was dead.