Yeah, small waves. 5+ foot shorebreak, you don't make it without fins. An undertow, as opposed to a rip current, is, hard-breaking shorebreak, water runs up to sand, and sucks directly out, into the next wave that goes vertical and delivers a torturous body-pummeling lip. If you don't know what you are doing, if you don't have fins, you get sucked up the face, and get taken over the falls and delivered into the sand on the lip.
Some tiathlete girls getting off their bikes, not happening. It was probably a 2-3 ft face shorebreak.