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Two rock fishermen were swept to their deaths on Auckland's west coast yesterday.
One of the dead - a West Auckland father-of-two and champion weightlifter - had vowed never to fish from rocks again after a near-miss a month ago.
"He came home and told us all he wasn't going to go fishing anymore," Faleauto Talona Fotu-Taua's grieving daughter Angela, 22, said.
"An accident nearly happened [then], but he was strong enough to hold on. My dad's a pretty strong man."
The group of five, who worked for water heater company Rheem, were fishing from a rocky platform off Erangi Pt, a notoriously treacherous spot between Te Henga-Bethells and O'Neill beaches. None was thought to be wearing lifejackets.
They had been fishing for about four hours when a big wave struck about 11am.
Fotu-Taua managed to grab a rope thrown by his companions but stopped breathing after being dragged onto rocks.
Alerted by an off-duty lifeguard out surfing, two lifeguards battled 2m surf to reach Fotu-Taua.
They performed CPR but were unable to revive him.
A paramedic winched down from the Westpac Rescue helicopter pronounced him dead.
Lifeguards placed a rescue tube around him and guided him to a waiting inflatable rescue boat.
It was too dangerous for the boat to approach the rocks, so the survivors - two of whom were brothers - had to wait three hours before the water was low enough for them to be lowered to safety via a cable over a cave entrance.
The Coastguard plane and Westpac helicopter searched for the missing man for about an hour, and rescue boats made repeated sweeps over the afternoon but his body had not been recovered last night.
Northern region surf lifesaving manager Dean Storey told the Herald on Sunday the lifeguards who tried to revive Fotu-Taua were "pretty shaken up".
"If those two boys had been wearing a $60 lifejacket there's a good chance we wouldn't have had the double tragedy we have had here today."
Speaking from the Glen Eden home she shared with her parents and husband David Lafaele, a tearful Angela last night said she found out something was wrong when a police officer arrived as she was about to leave for work.
"He was in dad's car."
Angela, who said she still couldn't believe her dad was dead, had to call her mother, Filo, in Samoa, where she had been attending to family matters.
"She didn't believe me."
Angela said her father, village chief of Lalomanu, Western Samoa, left home at 5am yesterday.
"By 11am he was gone. He never said goodbye. The last time I saw him was at dinner [on Friday], when he said come and eat. He was an amazing cook."
Angela said her father was still strong, despite being in his 50s. A dislocated shoulder was all that stopped him competing at an Oceanic weightlifting championship this year.
The family living room is full of his medals.
Bethells surf lifesaving president Dave Comp said "angel rings", or lifebuoys, were expected to be installed in the next few weeks where the men were fishing.
He said they could have made all the difference yesterday.
"We could be talking about someone who just had scratches and a hell of a swim rather than someone who just died."
Teresa Stanley of WaterSafe Auckland told the Herald on Sunday it was disappointing the drownings came after so much work had gone into a safety campaign targeting rock fishermen.
- ADDITIONAL REPORTING: Claire Rorke
