This 2.4m high cay, which is enclosed by a coral reef has an opening on the South Western side.

A clear channel, about 2.1 km wide, lies between Northeast Cay and the next reef to the South.

Zenobia, was on passage from Manila to South America and Lihou had chosen a route through Torres Strait.

It was also the first occasion a ship was navigated through the Coral Sea from Torres Strait, south-eastward to the southward of New Caledonia.

After a hazardous passage through the Strait, losing four anchors and a rudder, the ship departed the Great Barrier Reef via an opening near Murray Islands.

Thinking it a duty I owe for the benefit of Navigators, I beg leave to acquaint you of the discovery I made between New Holland and New Guinea.

On the 20th day of June last (1818), I took a good departure from Sandy Cape, New Holland, and steered a course to keep in mid-way, between the Great Barrier and Wreck Reefs On the following day at noon, saw sandbanks and small rocks- a-head, stretching as far to the Eastward as we could see from the masthead, and about five miles to the Westward, I immediately wore and run down to the Western extremity, and passed it within two miles longitude, by good timekeepers, 154° 20’ East, and latitude 21° 58’ South, and as the Western End of Wreck Reef is laid down in 155° 28’ East, I concluded it mull be a new discovery and called it Midway Reef; as it renders the navigation between the Great Barrier and Wreck Reefs very critical, I submit it to your consideration to give it such publicity as you may deem necessary I have, etc.

Seven of the Islanders were drowned in swimming off from the wreck to the boats, but the remainder, together with the crew, were rescued by the steamer Leichhardt, sent to their assistance by the owner of the vessel The schooner Noumea was a vessel of some 144 tons approximately 100foot and built at George's River New South Wales in 1873 by Geo and Registered (64437) and owned by Mr Paxton, of Mackay, and was about six years old Her captain (RJ Belbin) was formerly in command of the Lady Darling, and has bad an extensive experience in the South Sea Island labour trade the vessel had, we behave, been recently purchased by Mr. Paxton for £2600, and was on her first trading voyage between the South Sea Islands and Mackay She was insured in the Sydney office of the Australian Alliance Company Captain South, of the Keilawarra, from Brisbane, reported when he arrived at Sea Hill on the morning of the 18 May of having picked up a boat containing Captain Belbin and six white sailors in great distress of the schooner Nouméa, which vessel had been wrecked on May 13 on Saumarez Reef, Captain South's report added that there were four white men (including the Government agent) and ninety-nine islanders still at the wreck and the reef, in need of immediate assistance, as they have no food to sustain them The captain left the vessel the day after she struck, and that, and as up to that time the crew had been unable to save any provisions from the wreck, it is feared the people left behind Mr WH Paxton, the owner of the Nouméa, arranged with the ASN Company for the Steamer Leichhardt, to proceed to the wreck, and with instructions to bring the islanders from the wreck to Keppel Bay, where they are to be transshipped into the Tinonee for Mackay, which is their destination[6] The steamer Leichhardt had arrived at Keppel Bay on 21 May 1880 from the scene of the wreck of the schooner Noumea with the whole of the European crew of the vessel and ninety-three South Sea Islanders.

Other islanders were drowned while endeavouring to swim from the wreck to the boats the day after the vessel struck.

The Nouméa was bilged and dismasted, and a total wreck on the north-east point of Saumarez Reef.

She was then launched over the starboard quarter with a crew consisting of the boatswain, four Kanakas, two black women, and a boy.

Wrecked on the eastern edge of the Saumarez Reef in the Coral Sea, 15 July 1945.