Little Zeinobiyah Soetekouw was just six months old when her family of 13 sold their farm and set sail around Australia.
Her parents Beccie and Steve crammed their children into a 33-year-old 13m yacht ‘Sumbawa’ where they cooked, slept, and played together.
But their idyllic life on the open water was shattered on Tuesday when three-year-old Zobbie, as she is nicknamed, fell overboard and drowned north of Sydney.
Her devastated siblings Natasha, 15, Blade, 14, Ryan, 12, Nakita, 11, Alec, 10, Hunter, 8, Amlayah, 7, Yasha, 5, Azanyah, 4, and one-year-old Shakirah are still coming to terms with the tragedy.
Zeinobiyah Soetekouw, 3, lived on a 13-metre yacht with her parents and 10 siblings, sailing around Australia from when she was just six months old
The little girl (pictured), who was affectionately called Zobbie by her parents Steve and Beccie, drowned after she fell from a yacht in the Hawkesburry River on Tuesday
Ms Soetekouw described the toddler as ‘Miss Independent’ in her blog, saying she ‘won’t be helped when she can do it herself. #socapable’.
Last year, on her second birthday, Ms Soetekouw wrote of Zobbie’s 18-month life on board the yacht and how she had grown to love it.
‘Zeinobiyah has learned to sit, crawl and walk on the boat. She has been to a few different ports, seen dolphins, whales and the beauty of the Ocean,’ she wrote.
‘She says things are at the bow or stern. She knows if her life jacket goes on, we are either sailing or going in the dingy.
‘She has started swimming around the boat in her life jacket as well.’
The close-knit family began their voyage in December 2016 after buying the Roberts Mauritius yacht in June of that year.
Self-confessed hippies, Mr and Ms Soetekouw were drawn to their waterborne lifestyle by a sense of adventure they couldn’t fulfil on the farmlands of Tasmania.
‘We are from a small town where we have raised animals for food, from chickens to milking goats and even cattle,’ Ms Soetekouw wrote on her blog.
‘We thought that our lives were going to stay on the farm and then came the itchy feet.’
Her devastated parents Steve and Beccie and siblings Natasha, 15, Blade, 14, Ryan, 12, Nakita, 11, Alec, 10, Hunter, 8, Amlayah, 7, Yasha, 5, Azanyah, 4, and one-year-old Shakirah are still coming to terms with the tragedy
Their new claustrophobic life took some getting used to after years in a big house surrounded by open fields.
‘Whether during the day or at night, there are kids at our feet… The lack of quiet can be frustrating,’ she wrote.
Two children sleep in each of the port and bow cabins with two on couches in the living area and four on the floor nearby.
The family sold almost everything it owned when it moved on to the boat, but with 13 people it was hard to fit everything into the small space.
Everything from food to engine parts, paint tins, tools and supplies like wood and oil litter the floor and couches, and the couple sleep beside spare sails.
There is no washing machine so unless they are docked to hit a laundromat, all their clothes are washed with seawater and draped over the side to dry.
The entire cricket team of children all contribute to the many chores needed to keep the boat running and every mouth fed.
Even little Amlayah, who is only seven, takes a turn cooking dinner with the help of her younger siblings who aren’t even school aged yet.
Everything is prepared on the yacht’s small stove in a 14-litre pressure cooker with porridge for breakfast prepared the night before.
The family makes shopping trips on shore every three days and gets through 2kg of rice or pasta a day, plus 1kg of meat, along with vegetables.
All the children are homeschooled on board by their mother and are even learning Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch.
Ms Soetekouw nicknamed Natasha as ‘Swimming Comedic Writer’, while others are ‘Mr Technical’, ‘Wonder Woman’s Protege’ and ‘Mr Jovial’.
Their brood got even bigger last February when baby girl Shakirah was born on board just off Chinamans Beach in Mosman, Sydney.
Ms Soetekouw said the birth was easy and the 4.2kg newborn was delivered in just over and hour.
Zobbie had allegedly been playing with her siblings (pictured) on the boat, which the self-confessed ‘hippy’ family called ‘The Sumbawa’, before the incident occurred
Two children sleep in each of the port and bow cabins with two on couches in the living area and four on the floor nearby
But despite the steps the couple took to bring some order to the nomadic household, life on board is chaotic.
The free-spirited children frequently go off on their own – including jumping overboard for spontaneous swimming.
‘They all decided that it would be fun to jump in the water and swim 50-odd metres to shore,’ she wrote of the four eldest.
‘It was so cold Nakita needed a board to help her. Blade got back saying his skin was stinging and Natasha vomited.’
Later that month, five-month-old Shakirah got a black eye when she fell down playing with her siblings.
Our oldest was trying to get her to lean forward to catch her. Tash missed and Shakirah hit her face. We cuddled and fed her so she settled,’ Ms Soetekouw wrote.
‘What the heck does this say! I feel like a bad mum. I know things happen. It was an accident. Shakirah is fine. But WOW! I can’t believe how this makes me feel.’
The family was featured in an award-winning photo capturing the chaos and freedom of a huge family living on a boat.
The black and white shop by photographer Alex Vaughn depicted three of the children swinging from the mast ropes while Ms Soetekouw, wearing a dirty singlet, held a fourth.
At the front of the scene, his wife breastfed a newborn Shakirah surrounded by their six other children standing on lounging in a hammock.
The photo won second prize at the National Photographic Portrait Prize in February.
The free-spirited children frequently go off on their own – including jumping overboard for spontaneous swimming
Zobbie’s mother Beccie (pictured), who had been ashore, discovered her second youngest child was missing when she returned to the boat on Tuesday
Ms Soetekouw said it painfully captured their life on board and at the time she wasn’t a fan of it but eventually came around.
‘When I looked at it, I saw all the kids swinging and having fun, just like they normally did,’ she wrote.
‘I saw how stressed I was. How tired I was. How I wasn’t smiling or watching my other kids with merriment.
‘It showed my pain. This is why this picture is so powerful.’
This pain mirrored the feelings she had years earlier that she confessed almost made her abandon her family to travel the world.
‘Three years ago, I wanted to give up motherhood because I felt the Universe was calling me for more,’ she wrote in a candid Facebook post.
‘How could I do what the Universe was pulling me to; how could I change the world AND be a mum?
‘Have you ever felt this? How do you live your dream life with your kids? They take up all your time, they even take up your air where you feel like you can’t breathe.’
In a follow up post on her blog, Ms Soetekouw explained how her ‘mid life crisis’ (at 32) eventually led to the family selling up and buying the boat.
‘Everything I had loved before seemed to cause resentment now. I resented my husband because he was so stuck in the norm.
‘I resented my kids because they made me feel trapped. I resented my parents because they were so controlling. I even resented my dog, it was just something else to look after, something else that held me back.’
‘I did think about life without them and even pictured how I would live. In reality, it’s not what I wanted. Yet I didn’t know how to do both – adventure and family.’
Paramedics stabilised the critically injured girl at a ramp before she was rushed to hospital
Almost a year to the day later, Zobbie was playing with her 10 siblings on the boat as it was moored in the Hawkesburry River.
Ms Soetekouw, who had been ashore, discovered Zobbie was missing when she returned to the boat in Dead Horse Bay off Brooklyn.
The three-year-old was found in the water about 100m away, and it’s alleged she had been floating there for about 20 minutes.
Witnesses said the little blonde-haired girl, who was wearing a red dress, was floating face-down when she was found.
Zobbie (pictured) was found in the water about 100 metres from where the boat was moored, and it’s alleged she had been floating there about 20 minutes
Emergency services and water police desperately tried to save her, but the girl was pronounced dead after being airlifted to The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.
A family friend, Andrea Stebbins, said the traumatic ordeal was ‘devastating’.
Ms Stebbins described how the close-knit family had a ‘buddy system’, with the older siblings taking care of the younger ones.
The girl reportedly went missing from the vessel, south of Dangar Island, about 12.45pm.
On Tuesday, Geoff Gauslaa, whose Brooklyn Barges boat was moored nearby, watched on helplessly as emergency workers tried to save the girl on the wharf.
‘We were in at the wharf there at Mooney when the cops came in with a little girl, and then they unloaded the little girl onto the wharf,’ Mr Gauslaa previously told Daily Mail Australia.
Mr Gauslaa described the child as a ‘little while girl with blondish hair and a bright red dress on’.
The barge worker said the girl appeared to still be alive when officers tried to resuscitate her.
‘I actually thought at one stage when they had her on the wharf, the kid actually moved.
‘She was still alive I think, I don’t know.
‘You couldn’t just stand and watch it, it was pretty horrific.’
The girl was airlifted to the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, where she died a short time later
The tragic drowning occurred in waters off Dangar Island, north of Sydney on Tuesday
NSW Ambulance acting Central Coast zone manager Sue Dorahy previously said paramedics were met with ‘a chaotic scene’.
‘The child was not breathing,’ Ms Dorahy told Nine News.
‘Our paramedics did an exceptional resuscitation effort on the child, worked extensively for a number of minutes and the helicopter arrived.
‘These scenes are always very, very confronting when it involves children and any water-based job that does involve a child is always very chaotic.’
An investigation has been launched and a report will be prepared for the Coroner.