A California man who drowned while trying to save his 6-year-old daughter at the Makapuu Tide Pools this weekend was described Monday as an intelligent and loving family man.

The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office identified the victims as Mark Hornor, 46, and his daughter Mina, 6, both of Berkeley, Calif. The Medical Examiner’s Office said the cause of death for both was drowning.

Hornor was swept out to sea at about 11:20 a.m. Saturday while trying to rescue his daughter after a shoreline wave knocked her into the ocean, police said.

Shayne Enright, spokeswoman for the city Emergency Services Department, said lifeguards pulled both of them out of the water unresponsive and took them back to shore on a personal watercraft. They were treated and taken to area hospitals, where they died. Mina was the youngest of Hornor’s three daughters.

In a telephone interview Monday, Christopher Hornor said his brother was a devoted husband and family man and a great judge of character who gave attention to detail.

“One of the best dads I’ve ever met,” he said. “He was very private. He never really liked to talk about the things that he did, but he did so much for his family and his friends.”

He said Hornor, who loved surfing and was a strong swimmer, would do anything for his family and that it was no surprise that he risked his life trying to save his daughter.

He recalled his brother as an excellent cook with many hobbies, including raising chickens, keeping bees and maintaining an organic garden. According to Hornor’s Linkedin account, he was an assistant general counsel at Vodafone in the Bay Area.

He graduated from University of California, Berkeley, and received his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, his brother said. He previously held several other senior management positions, including as chief operating officer of a solar energy company that Christopher Hornor founded, called Better Energy Systems.

“He loved beautiful places and beautiful things,” said Christopher Hornor, who was on his way to Hawaii. “It’s like where he was when he was taken.”

At the time Mark Hornor and his daughter were swept out to sea, the surf was rising on east-facing shores because of the remnants of Hurricane Celia. Surf was 4 to 6 feet at the time, but a high-surf advisory did not take effect until Sunday.

Others have been injured or killed at the tide pools, including a father and his 11-year-old daughter who drowned in 2011.

On Monday a state Department of Land and Natural Resources spokeswoman urged the public to stay out of the water at the Makapuu Tide Pools because of high surf from the remnants of former Hurricanes Celia and Darby.

“Periodically, very large waves break and sweep over the rocks flooding the tide pools, followed by a strong returning surge that pulls the water back over the sharp rocks and out to sea,” DLNR spokeswoman Deborah Ward said in a statement.