Left floating at sea off Cape Saunders for any longer on Sunday, the pair would not be alive to tell their story, Mr Moses said.
He was discharged from Dunedin Hospital yesterday and spoke exclusively to the Otago Daily Times about his rescue, alongside good mate Cory Ferguson.
When swept off rocks by an unexpectedly large wave, Mr Moses (35) thought his time was up.
He almost drowned as a teenager with his then partner, and consequently hates the sea.
"I can't stand it. I hadn't been near the sea until Sunday," he said.
With Mr Ferguson, he took Kane and the teenager's best friend Micah Wharerimu (Mr Ferguson's 14-year-old nephew) on a fishing expedition to hook blue cod and groper at Cape Saunders on Sunday afternoon.
The four had just arrived when Kane ventured on to rocks to collect mussels for bait. Mr Moses was nearby, while Micah and Mr Ferguson were on higher land preparing fishing rods. Without warning, Kane and his stepfather were washed into the ocean, fully clothed, without life jackets.
"It wasn't a very big swell, otherwise we wouldn't have gone there, especially with the boys," Mr Ferguson said.
He stripped off his heavy outer clothing and jumped in, as Micah threw him a nearby life ring. He secured Kane, whose wrist was broken, to the life ring before doing the same for Mr Moses.
He hoped Micah would reach the nearest dwelling to alert emergency services, and started thinking about plan B.
"My plan was to get us to Allans [Beach] or go out past the island [Wharekakahu] and try to get on to breakers. I kept talking to David and Kane, telling them to kick ... I couldn't think about losing them," Mr Ferguson said.
"It was a horrible feeling. I thought, all my darlings are at home and I'm getting out of here, and these two [Kane and Mr Moses] are coming," he said.
But after an hour, they were exhausted.
"If it wasn't for Cory, we would be dead. I gave up. I thought I was ... [done for]," Mr Moses said.
Fearing the worst, Mr Ferguson pinned his last hope on a lucky sign.
"An albatross started circling above us and then sat down beside us in the water. I was looking at it, thinking, 'Please be good luck', and within five minutes I heard the helicopter approaching," he said.
"It came just in time. Those fellas only had another five minutes."
Mr Moses remembered hearing the helicopter, then waking up in hospital.
"If it wasn't for the helicopter and that tube [life ring], she would have been all over," he said.
Kane, whose 15th birthday is tomorrow, remains in Dunedin Hospital with a broken wrist and various cuts and bruises. He was lucky to recover from a dangerously low body temperature of 27degC when rescued, doctors told his mother Jody Harvey.
She took a telephone call about 4pm on Sunday and then experienced "the worst night of my life".
"When I got to Kane, he was cold. He's my only child and I'm just glad he's alive," she said.
