Waitemata Harbour birthday party cruise tragedy: Family's relief at bringing "their boy" Tevita Kava home for burial

Tevita Kava isn't alone anymore.

Today - 13 days after Kava fell into Waitemata Harbour from a commercial party cruise boat while celebrating his friend's 30th birthday, and four days since his body was pulled from the water - Kava was returned to his family.

At his Tongan church in Otahuhu, his casket was carried inside and then draped in
fetea'u - traditional Tongan funeral decorations made up of cloths and flowers.

The decorations were white, 29-year-old Kava's favourite colour, and family and friends shared memories, prayed and sang traditional Tongan hymns.

Ngaire Speedy with two portraits of her cousin Tevita Kava, who died after falling of a charter party cruise boat in Waitemata Harbour. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Ngaire Speedy sang too, and she thought of her adored older cousin and how he always encouraged her to be heard.

"Neither of us could sing. I think it skipped me and him in our family, but he didn't really care. He said, 'If we don't have a voice we will just sing louder than everyone else'."

Speedy won't hear that off-key voice again, but Kava, also known as David, is home, and those who loved him won't leave his side until he is buried today.It means so much to have him back, Speedy told the Weekend Herald outside the Mangere home of Kava's step-parents, with whom he lived and who treated him as their own son. His own mother died in 2011.

Every day Kava was missing family were out on the water, or scouring the jagged coastline, of the upper part of Auckland's central harbour.

"Uncles, aunties, cousins ... they've been out every day, at sea, walking around, calling him to come home. We all had hope that we will find him eventually.

"Our mothers told us to keep strong. [They said] 'we will find David, he will come home to us'," the 21-year-old said.

Tevita Kava, right, pictured with his sister Mary Rose Telua at his Elim Bible College graduation last year. Photo / Supplied by family

Kava, who couldn't swim and who repeatedly expressed his fear of falling overboard in the hours before the tragedy, tumbled backwards into the water when he leaned against a closed ramp at the stern of a Red Boats charter just before 9.30pm on June 3.

The alarm was raised, but despite a desperate search by those on board and emergency services, Kava had disappeared into the pitch-black winter's night.

When the news came on Monday that he had been found, it was like a weight lifted from their shoulders, Speedy said, proudly dressed in Kava's own flax-woven ta'ovala, a traditional Tongan mat reserved for special occasions.

"For my mum and her siblings, they found their boy. For us [cousins] it was just 'we found our brother, our brother can finally come home ... we can make sure he's warm and we can have him with us in his last moments before we lay him to rest'."

The family wanted to thank those who helped find Kava, who used to spend his working week at the Tip Top ice-cream factory and his free time in church or volunteering to help those less fortunate.

Tevita Kava will be buried today, after his body was found in Waitemata Harbour on Monday. Photo / Supplied

"He had a beautiful smile, he had a heart as pure as gold and he always put the needs of others before his own ... so to everyone that helped, thank you so much.

The number of searchers who turned out was a mark of how loved he was, she said.

"It means a lot to our family to have our brother home [and] it means the world to our family to know that he was loved by so many people and he touched so many people's lives."

Red Boats owner Andrew Somers said last week their thoughts were with Kava's family but he could not comment until an investigation by Maritime New Zealand was completed.

Immediately after the tragedy, Somers said the ramp wasn't broken and he was unsure how it was unlocked and untied on the night Kava fell.

Speedy said the family believed what had happened was "in God's plan".

"There's no bitterness."

As they gathered together around the family home the day before Kava's farewell, each was already finding a way to mark the impact he had had on their lives.

Inoke Kava and the tattoo he had inked in tribute to his cousin, Tevita Kava, who died after falling overboard in a birthday party cruise tragedy. Photo / Jason Oxenham

For Inoke Kava, it was by having his cousin's name tattooed across his back.

He'd always wanted to thank Kava for his support after moving in with him and his late aunt when he first came to New Zealand to study.

"Now he's gone, I thought 'I haven't done anything' ... so I did this."

A mechanised needle breaking and then injecting ink into your skin doesn't usually come without pain, but he didn't feel a thing.

"I would've if it had been something else. But because it was his name, it didn't hurt a bit."