The daughter of an 80-year-old cruise passenger whose body was found on a remote island in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has accused the operator of a “failure of care and common sense” after the ship sailed without her mother following an organised hike, setting out a stark sequence of events that she says ended with the older woman dying alone off a rugged trail. Katherine Rees said her mother, Sydney resident Suzanne Rees, was on the second day of a 60-day circumnavigation of Australia aboard the Coral Adventurer when passengers went ashore at Lizard Island on Saturday to climb Cook’s Look, the island’s summit. In a statement released on Thursday, she said the family had been told it was “a very hot day” and that her mother “felt ill on the hill climb” and was instructed to head back down, unescorted, before the ship later departed “apparently without doing a passenger count.” “At some stage in that sequence, or shortly after, Mum died, alone,” she said, adding that the family was “shocked and saddened that the Coral Adventurer left Lizard Island after an organised excursion without my Mum.”
Authorities said a search was initiated late on Saturday after the ship reported a missing passenger, and a helicopter crew located Suzanne Rees’s body on Sunday near the Cook’s Look track, several dozen metres off the path. Police described the death as “sudden” and “non-suspicious” pending a coroner’s investigation, while search reports indicated she appeared to have fallen on steep ground. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said it was examining why the passenger may not have been accounted for when the vessel left Lizard Island and would determine if there had been any non-compliance with required procedures. Queensland Police confirmed the case had been referred to the coroner, and a workplace safety regulator is also investigating.
According to vessel tracking cited by AMSA, the Coral Adventurer left Lizard Island on Saturday afternoon and later turned back towards the island that night after the absence was discovered, returning in the early hours of Sunday as search teams began operating by land, sea and air. The initial alert to authorities came around 9pm on Saturday after the master of the ship notified AMSA that the passenger had not returned. In their public statements, investigators have focused on the boarding and counting of passengers following the shore excursion, a routine step that is commonly enforced on coastal expedition cruises.
Coral Expeditions said it was “deeply sorry” and expressed condolences to the family while pledging full cooperation with all inquiries. “We have expressed our heartfelt condolences to the Rees family and remain deeply sorry that this has occurred,” chief executive Mark Fifield said, adding that the company would continue to support relatives through the immediate aftermath while declining to discuss specifics during the active investigations. The firm acknowledged a “tragic death of a passenger on the Coral Adventurer during an excursion to Lizard Island,” and noted that a search and rescue operation had been launched before Queensland Police notified the company that the woman had been found deceased.
Katherine Rees said her mother was a fit, active grandmother who gardened and took part in bushwalking, and that the family wanted the coroner to determine “what the company should have done that might have saved Mum’s life.” Her account, drawing on information relayed by police, set out the moments she believes framed her mother’s final hours: an unescorted descent after feeling unwell in intense heat on exposed terrain; a ship’s departure following the excursion; and the discovery of a body off the track the following day. She said the family remained stunned by the core question of how the vessel could have sailed without confirming that all passengers who had disembarked had been accounted for.
Officials said the Coral Adventurer reported the passenger missing about five hours after leaving Lizard Island, having earlier ferried guests ashore for the hike. Rees was reportedly first noted absent when she did not appear for the evening meal, prompting a check that led crew to realise she had not reboarded after the excursion. AMSA said it intended to board the ship when it reached Darwin to support its inquiry into procedures and to “make an assessment as to whether there was any non-compliance associated with the passenger not being counted onto the ship.” The regulator offered condolences to the family while outlining its process for determining what enforcement action, if any, may follow.
Lizard Island lies roughly 250km north of Cairns and around 27km off the mainland near Cooktown. The Cook’s Look climb, which rises to around 359 metres, is a prominent feature for visitors and can be challenging in the tropical heat, with uneven surfaces, limited shade and stretches of rock that require careful footing. According to the family’s statement, police told them conditions on Saturday were “very hot,” a detail investigators will assess alongside timing, water provision and supervision when reconstructing the decisions made onshore. Searchers found the body about 50 metres off the track, indicating a deviation near exposed slopes; police have not issued a formal cause of death, and the coroner will consider medical and environmental factors alongside any injuries consistent with a fall.
The death has raised immediate questions about headcount protocols on expedition itineraries that rely on frequent tender transfers and guided walks. Operators typically use manifest checks, wristbands, radioed confirmations or electronic tally systems to ensure that every guest who disembarks is logged back aboard before a vessel moves off station. In this case, the daughter’s statement asserted that the ship left “apparently without doing a passenger count,” a point now central to the investigations by AMSA and the coroner. The timeline provided by authorities—departure in the afternoon, notification at 9pm, return to the island in the early hours—will be scrutinised to determine what, if any, opportunities were missed to identify the absence earlier and to mount a daylight search on the island itself.
For the family, the focus is on accountability and on memorialising an older woman who, by her daughter’s description, had the fitness and appetite for the sort of voyage that combines coastal sightseeing with moderate activity. Cruise marketing materials for such trips highlight close-to-shore exploration, small groups and guided hikes to vantage points such as Cook’s Look. The gap between that promise and a lone descent on a high-heat day is at the heart of the daughter’s appeal for answers. “I hope that the coronial inquiry will find out what the company should have done that might have saved Mum’s life,” she said.
Queensland Police said a report would be prepared for the coroner and that the death was being treated as non-suspicious, standard language for a case where early evidence does not indicate foul play. Investigators will consider the condition of the path; signage and guidance given at the trailhead; the availability of water and rest points; and the supervision ratio between staff and guests distributed along the route. They will also examine shipboard procedures, including the system for recording guest movements and the timing of checks after the last tender returns. If the coroner’s findings address headcount practices and oversight of vulnerable passengers, they may feed into guidance from AMSA for expedition operators along the reef.
AMSA’s investigation is running in parallel and will assess compliance with national standards that require operators to maintain accurate passenger manifests and to ensure that passengers who go ashore are recovered before a vessel departs station. The authority said it would determine whether “non-compliance” occurred “associated with the passenger not being counted onto the ship” and would take action as necessary. It has already outlined the sequence in which it was notified—by the ship’s master at about 9pm—before assisting with the search overnight, as police coordinated ground efforts on the island and air assets at first light.
The island’s terrain and the distance from the mainland complicate rescue operations. While Lizard Island has an airstrip and a small resort, most of its interior is national park, with rocky ridges and scrub prone to high radiant heat. Searchers located the body near Telstra Rock, a landmark on the climb to Cook’s Look, according to reports relayed to authorities. Weather, light and the physical demands of the terrain would all have influenced the speed and safety of any on-foot search after dark; those factors will be weighed when investigators reconstruct what was possible once the absence was finally recognised.
The company’s statement did not detail the number of staff ashore, the structure of the excursion groups or the procedures for guests who choose to turn back. On such hikes, operators often assign a guide to the front and a “tail-end Charlie” to the rear to ensure no one falls behind unnoticed. Whether such a system was in place, and how a participant who reported feeling unwell came to be descending alone, are questions the family wants answered. Coral Expeditions has said it is cooperating with AMSA, police and the coroner and that it will not comment further until those inquiries are complete.
For now, the uncontested facts set out by officials and the daughter’s statement present a stark chronology. On Saturday morning, passengers disembarked the Coral Adventurer for a hike on Lizard Island. In heat described by police as “very hot,” Suzanne Rees felt unwell and was told to descend; at some point after that, the ship left the island. Her absence was detected later that evening, triggering a late-night notification to AMSA. In the early hours of Sunday, the ship returned to the island as authorities mounted a search. After sunrise, a helicopter crew found her body off the main path to the summit. The coroner will now reconstruct the missing hours, looking at heat stress, hydration, footing and the time at which the last person saw her alive, and will consider the adequacy of supervision and the ship’s departure procedures in determining whether any recommendations should be made.
Katherine Rees’s words have framed the human cost. She said her mother was “a healthy and active gardener and member of a bushwalking group,” that the family was trying to process how an “organised excursion” could end with a solitary descent and a missed headcount, and that she hopes the coroner identifies steps that could prevent a repeat. The combination of extreme heat, challenging terrain and an elderly passenger who became unwell is a known risk profile in outdoor tourism; whether the systems in place on the day met the standards expected for that profile will be central to the official findings. Until then, the daughter’s account stands as the clearest narrative of the final moments: a climb cut short by illness, a lone path back down, and a ship that was already under way when the sun went down.
The broader context is the reef’s history of safety scrutiny, particularly over accounting for guests during and after shore or water-based excursions. Authorities drew comparisons to past cases only to underline the stakes of tight manifest control in remote settings. In this instance, investigators have avoided speculation and are focusing on documented timings and procedures: when the last tender left the island, when the onboard team completed any checks, when the dinner absence was flagged, and how quickly the situation escalated into a coordinated search. The company’s decision to return to Lizard Island in the small hours will be weighed against the hours lost between departure and the initial alert.
As the inquiries proceed, the family is preparing for a coroner’s inquest that will examine the circumstances of the death and could make recommendations to avert similar tragedies. AMSA has indicated it will take any necessary action if it identifies breaches connected to passenger accounting. Coral Expeditions has said it remains in contact with the family and is supporting them. Behind those formal processes is the simple picture set out by the daughter: an experienced older traveller who went ashore for a hike, felt the effects of heat on a steep climb, started back down alone, and was not on board when the anchor was raised. The coroner’s timeline, once complete, will test each point in that picture against procedure and practice; the family’s grief, now public, has already fixed those points in the minds of many who read her words.