Marina service
Bermagui Fishermen's Wharf & Co-operative
About
Bermagui Fishermen's Wharf & Co-operative at a glance
Working fishermen's wharf precinct on the Sapphire Coast with a 24-hour card-operated diesel fuel dock, vessel berths up to 25m and modern guest facilities. Host to a slipway, boat repairs, chandlery, charter fleet, retail outlets, restaurants and bars; famous for tuna and swordfish landings.
Service area: Sapphire Coast
- Marina type
- commercial club
- Operator
- Bermagui Fishermen's Co-operative
- Region
- Sapphire Coast
- Water body
- Bermagui Harbour
- Maximum vessel
- 25 m
- Berth types
- casual berthing, permanent berthing
Facilities and services
- fuel
- slipway
- repairs & maintenance
- chandlery
- restaurant/cafe
- 24-hour self-serve diesel fuel dock
- three-phase power
- coin laundry
- showers
- boat ramp
- marine rescue base
- art gallery
- charter fleet
- gelati bar
- after-hours duty phone
About Bermagui Fishermen's Wharf & Co-operative
Bermagui Fishermen's Wharf is the working heart of one of the last genuine fishing ports on the New South Wales south coast. The Bermagui Fishermen's Co-Operative Limited was founded in 1946 by local fishermen, making it among the earliest fishing co-operatives in the country, and it still lands and exports pelagic catches that include bluefin and yellowfin tuna, albacore and marlin varieties alongside flathead, ling, snapper and bream. The precinct at 73-79 Lamont Street is not a polished leisure marina but a hybrid: a commercial unloading wharf, a fuel dock, guest berths, a slipway and repair yard, all sharing the waterfront with a cocktail bar, an Italian restaurant, cafes, a gelati shop, an art gallery and a boutique. Visiting crews tie up a five-minute walk from the town centre and watch trawlers unload a few metres away. Bermagui's fishing fame predates the co-op; Zane Grey fished these waters for marlin in the 1930s and wrote the town into big-game angling folklore, and the continental shelf lies unusually close inshore here, which is why the charter fleet still runs wide for tuna and swordfish. The co-op acknowledges the Yuin people as traditional custodians of the land and water, and Marine Rescue operates from the precinct. The clientele reflects that dual identity: professional skippers and deckhands mixing with grey nomads, game fishing crews and holidaymakers eating fish and chips on the foreshore. For yacht crews running the coast between Eden and Batemans Bay, it is one of the more characterful and useful stops in southern New South Wales, offering the rare combination of round-the-clock fuel, repairs and a decent meal within a few steps of the berth.
Marina facilities
Services at the wharf revolve around the 24-hour self-serve diesel fuel dock, which dispenses distillate only from a card-operated Ezy Serve machine on the first jetty inside the leads, directly opposite the boat ramp. The system takes credit or debit cards with a pre-authorised amount, requires a PIN, has a 60-second safety cut-out and no maximum authorisation limit; multiple fills are handled by hanging up the nozzle and starting again. Dock bumpers and fresh water are provided at the fuel berth, and an after-hours mobile (0472 711 834) covers urgent problems such as fuel spills, while the office on Level 1 of the wharf building staffs weekdays 8am to 4pm on (02) 6493 4575. Berthing is offered for vessels up to about 28 metres with 240-volt and three-phase shore power, and booking ahead is essential. Guest amenities include 24-hour showers, toilets and a coin laundry with ample dockside parking. The commercial precinct houses Bermagui Boat Repairs and a slipway for haul-outs, a chandlery, charter and guided-tour operators, and the fishing co-operative's own unloading facilities. Feeding a crew is easy: the precinct's restaurants, bars, cafes and gelati shop trade on local seafood and produce, and town supermarkets are a short walk away. The co-op office handles berth bookings within business hours, asking for preferred dates, vessel length and power requirements, and an after-hours mobile takes urgent booking enquiries. Recreational skippers should note that this is an operating port, so commercial unloading and truck movements take priority around the wharf, and the fuel machine's instructions are posted on site for first-time users. Rates for berths are quoted on enquiry rather than published.
Local sailing knowledge
Approaching Bermagui requires respect. The entrance is trained but the co-op itself warns of a tidal depth of around 2.3 metres at the head of the leads, so deeper vessels should time their entry carefully even at high water, and the bar can turn hostile in a solid easterly or south-easterly swell. Once inside, the fuel dock appears directly ahead as you clear the leads. The harbour sits roughly midway on the exposed coast run between Eden and Batemans Bay, which makes it a valued refuge when the weather shuts down; alternatives are few. Ashore, Bermagui is a small town with a supermarket, bakery, pubs and the Bermagui Beach Hotel, plus the famous Blue Pool, a saltwater rock pool at the base of the cliffs, and Camel Rock on the beach to the north. The big draw is the fishing: the continental shelf runs closer inshore here than almost anywhere else on the coast, so game boats reach tuna and marlin grounds quickly, and the autumn yellowfin run and the swordfish fishery keep the co-op busy. Whale watching runs in season, and Montague Island lies off Narooma a short distance north. The wharf precinct itself supplies most needs - fuel, ice, repairs, chandlery, meals - without leaving the dock. Visiting boats generally berth bow or stern-to along the wharf face or on the mooring jetty near the fuel dock, and fenders earn their keep when the fishing fleet manoeuvres. Summer northeasterlies can push a chop into the outer harbour, but the inner berths remain comfortable. Everything in Bermagui is walkable, which makes the wharf a practical base for crews waiting out weather for a day or a week.