Body in water may be student

Yue Gui was last seen at the Leigh Marine Reserve Laboratory, about 80km north of central Auckland. Photo / Brett Phibbs

A body has been found near Goat Island, north of Auckland.

Police said the body was found in 16m deep water by a recreational diver about noon yesterday. The police dive squad confirmed the find and were expected to have recovered the remains last night.

The discovery comes just over a month since Yue Gui, a 30-year-old PhD student from Beijing, went missing in the area. The woman, known as Alice was thought to have fallen into the sea during a Sunday morning routine which involved checking the water temperature at the Goat Island Marine Reserve. Police feared she fall in as weather and tidal conditions were rough at the time.

Miss Yue's water temperature-measuring apparatus was also missing. A beanie, her shoes and her notebook were found on rocks in the area during a police search.

Her parents visited New Zealand after Miss Yue went missing and a memorial service was held late last month in Leigh, near the marine reserve faculty operated by Auckland University.

An acquaintance of Miss Yue, who did not wish to be named, said Miss Yue had been looking forward to returning to China after completing her postgraduate project studying the feeding biology of young greenshell mussels.

"Yue Gui is a city girl, but she loved the sea and spends more than half her life on the water rather than on land," she said. "She does not have much of a social life or many human friends but Yue Gui sees the fish and other living creatures in the ocean as her friends."