PASSENGERS aboard Coral Expeditions’ Coral Adventurer (pictured) have been offered refunds after the ship ran aground in Papua New Guinea late last month.
Adventurer’s 80 guests were transferred to a smaller vessel and taken to PNG to board a charter flight back to Cairns, and are being compensated for the affected leg of the journey or provided credits for future travel, a Coral spokesperson told CW.
A Papua New Guinean Governor has said Adventurer was taking a route which local operators typically avoid when the incident took place.
Rainbo Paita, the Governor of Morobe Province, told the ABC the route Adventurer was taking is known for it high reefs.
Adventurer became stuck on a reef off PNG’s coast on 27 Dec, and ended up spending almost four days marooned about 90 kilometres from the city of Lae, before she was pulled free.
Previous attempts to refloat Adventurer using propulsion at high tide had failed.
Adventurer’s seaworthiness is now under investigation by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) “based on reasonable suspicion” that the ship is “not seaworthy due to potential damage sustained during the grounding”, it said.
AMSA also looking into how an 80-year-old passenger died during a cruise aboard Adventurer the month prior (CW 03 Nov).
Suzanne Rees was found dead on Lizard Island in Queensland after Adventurer left her behind on the island in Nov. MS