A Washington state couple who traveled to Hawaii for a "babymoon" fatally drowned while snorkeling on the first full day of their trip. Sophia Kovalevich, 26, and Ilya 'Billy' Tsaruk, 25, were on vacation with two other couples, including Tsaruk's brother and his wife, when they decided to snorkel near Ahihi-Kinau Natural Area Reserve on Saturday, KITV reports. The Maui County Fire Department responded to reports of two snorkelers in distress there and found Kovalevich unresponsive in the water and Tsaruk on the ocean floor, about 100 to 150 yards from shore, Fox 13 reports. Neither could be revived, and the baby Kovalevich was carrying, a girl due in December, did not survive.
The couple leaves behind an 18-month-old son, Logan, who was with his aunt and uncle at the time. Their daughter was to be named Melody in honor of how much her mother, a nurse, loved to sing. "That day, the water was calm, and there were no out-of-the-ordinary weather conditions or anything like that. We thought we were good. What could possibly happen?" the couple's sister-in-law tells KOMO News. It's not yet clear what went wrong, but the other couples on the trip had apparently returned to shore after experiencing some sort of trouble, possibly related to the full-face snorkel masks they were wearing. "We don't think that she suffocated in the mask," Tsaruk's brother says. "It might've just played a role in scaring her to panic. Everything is just speculation at this point." (More Hawaii stories.)
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