Marina service
Andersons Boat Shed
About
Andersons Boat Shed at a glance
Long-established marina and boat-hire hub at Booker Bay on Brisbane Water, known for its sky-blue hire boats, offering small-craft hire, casual berthing and marine servicing.
Service area: Central Coast
- Marina type
- full-service marina
- Operator
- Andersons Boat Shed
- Region
- Central Coast
- Water body
- Brisbane Water
- Berth types
- casual berthing
Facilities and services
- repairs & maintenance
- self-drive boat hire (no licence)
- BBQ boats
- kiosk with bait and tackle
- coffee
- pet-friendly hire
- floating marina berths
About Andersons Boat Shed
Andersons Boat Shed has been part of Booker Bay's shoreline since 1932, when Bill Anderson and his wife Dorothy opened a general store, rented out holiday cottages and began building timber boats that were dragged down to the beach and hired out by the week. The business's history reads like a chronicle of Central Coast weather and luck: the wharf washed away in the 1954 floods and was rebuilt, cyclonic conditions smashed the boats and destroyed the wharf again in 1974, and vandals burnt the original boatshed down in 1983, forcing operations into the old garage until the present brick building went up in the mid-1980s. Ray and Jill converted the old wharf into a floating marina complex in the mid-1990s and modernised the famous putt-putt hire fleet to outboard power, and since 2007 the boatshed has traded seven days a week with a hire fleet built up to about 25 boats. The sky-blue hire boats are a Booker Bay institution, instantly recognisable on Brisbane Water, and the boatshed remains what it has always been: an unpretentious family business where holidaymakers hire a tinnie or a barbecue boat, buy bait and an ice cream at the kiosk, and potter off around the bays. Ownership has passed through several families - from the Andersons to Ray and Jill, then John and Carolyn, and since 2007 Rob, who had been involved with the boatshed since 1990 - yet the formula has barely changed in four generations. Some of the original hire boats served the fleet for over fifty years before being refitted or retired, a continuity few marine businesses anywhere in Australia can claim.
Marina facilities
The core business is self-drive boat hire on Brisbane Water, with no boat licence required for most of the fleet and a minimum hire of two hours. Options run from open aluminium tinnies and four-person runabouts through half-cabin boats to the popular barbecue boats, which carry a group around a gas barbecue under a sun cover; pets are welcome and wheelchair access is rated as good. Hire boats typically go out for three to four hours or a full day, and the boatshed opens seven days, roughly 7.30am to 6pm, with booking ahead strongly advised for sunny weekends, long weekends and school holidays when the fleet books out. The kiosk at 3a Petit Street sells bait, fishing gear, ice, snacks and coffee, continuing the general-store tradition of the founding family. Alongside the hire operation, Andersons functions as a small marina: the floating complex provides casual berthing, and marine servicing is offered for private boats, placing it in the practical Booker Bay service cluster with Booker Bay Marina and Central Coast Marina close by. Facilities are deliberately simple - there is no fuel wharf, slipway or chandlery on site, with those needs met by the neighbouring yards. What Andersons provides better than anyone on the waterway is affordable, licence-free access to Brisbane Water for families, fishers and first-timers. Staff give a briefing on the boat, the channels and the local rules before departure, and the fleet is maintained in the workshops behind the boatshed, where the wholesale bait business once operated. Hire rates are posted at the kiosk and on the website, with the barbecue boats commanding the premium. The berthing side suits small craft on casual terms rather than big cruisers, and overnight visitors should confirm availability by phone in season.
Local sailing knowledge
Booker Bay faces north-east across Brisbane Water toward the Rip Bridge, and the hire boats rarely need to go far to find the good water: the shallows around Rileys Island and St Huberts Island hold flathead and whiting, the channels off Ettalong produce bream, and patient crews have spotted sea turtles in the bay off Daleys Point. The Rip Bridge itself is the local landmark, with a strong tidal swirl under its arch that small boats should treat with respect on a running tide. Brisbane Water is broad, shallow in patches and well marked; hire skippers are briefed on the channels before departure, and the waterway's sheltered character makes it forgiving for novices. For a day ashore, Ettalong's cafes, cinemas and weekend markets are minutes away, the Palm Beach ferry leaves from Ettalong wharf across the bay, and the bougainvillea-lined streets of Booker Bay hold some of the Central Coast's most photographed waterfront cottages. Woy Woy, once jokingly called the Venice of Australia for its canals, is the service town a few kilometres away, with supermarkets, a train station and bait and tackle shops. Locals' advice is consistent: book the barbecue boats early, take the morning tide for the clearest water, and watch for jet skis near the bridge on summer weekends. The hire area covers the whole of Brisbane Water, so longer hires can reach Gosford's waterfront, the quiet bays around Point Clare, or down toward Wagstaffe and Pretty Beach for lunch. Afternoon northeasterlies build a light chop across the open bay in summer, which the half-cabins handle comfortably but tinnie crews feel; mornings are the calm time. Fishing licences are required and can be arranged online before arrival, and the kiosk staff are frank about what is biting and where - their advice, built on decades of bait supply, is worth more than most charts.