About
Como Marina at a glance
Historic marina at 2 Cremona Road, Como, on the Georges River operating since the late 1800s: boat hire (no licence required), berthing and moorings, mechanics, slipping/antifoul, waterside cafe and Thai restaurant; 10 minutes' walk from Como station.
Service area: Botany Bay / Georges River
- Marina type
- marina, boat hire & cafe
- Operator
- Como Marina
- Region
- Botany Bay / Georges River
- Water body
- Georges River
- Berth types
- permanent berthing, casual berthing, swing moorings
Facilities and services
- repairs & maintenance
- slipway
- restaurant/cafe
- licence-free boat hire
- boat sales (trade-in, finance, warranty)
- bait & tackle
- fishing licences
- upholstery
- stainless/aluminium welding & fabrication
- Thai restaurant
- kayak/canoe landing
About Como Marina
Como Marina, at 2 Cremona Road on the Georges River, is one of the oldest continuously operating boating businesses in Sydney, tracing its origins to the late 1800s when the river was the city's weekend escape hatch and Sydneysiders caught the train to Como to hire rowing boats and picnic launches. That hire-boat DNA still defines the place: where most marinas exist to store other people's boats, Como exists to put people on the water, and its fleet of licence-free hire boats remains the front door of the business. The site is a small riverside cluster rather than a single marina building. Around the berthing and mooring operation sit a mechanics workshop, a boat sales yard, an upholstery service, a welding and fabrication business, a waterside alfresco cafe and a licensed Thai restaurant, most with their own phone numbers and each with a long tenure at the address. The atmosphere is unpretentious and slightly time-warped, in the best way: bait and tackle over the counter, frozen bait and fishing licences for sale, hire staff who will mark up a river map with local fishing spots, and kayakers invited to pull in for coffee. Its position helps. Como is one of the few Sydney marinas genuinely accessible by public transport, ten minutes' walk from Como railway station on the Illawarra line, which made it a natural boating resort in the pre-car era and still makes it handy for boatless city dwellers. The Georges River here, wide, tidal and lined with national park and oyster leases upstream, is one of Sydney's underrated waterways, and Como Marina has been its informal headquarters for well over a century, surviving the rise of the trailer boat and the caravan park era largely unchanged in spirit.
Marina facilities
Boat hire is the headline service: a fleet of open runabouts and fishing boats that can be hired with no boat licence and no previous experience, used for fishing, sightseeing, picnics and parties, bookable on 02 9528 3033. Berthing and mooring services cover permanent and casual arrangements for river users, and the yard operates a slipway for slipping and antifouling work. The on-site trades are each separately contactable, a small-business ecosystem: the mechanics workshop does repairs and factory-backed servicing (9528 4661), an upholstery specialist handles trim and covers (0418 676 022), and a stainless steel and aluminium welder takes on fabrication and repairs (0418 969 919), while boat sales (9528 2155) offers trade-ins, finance, warranty and service back-up with used boats to view in the yard and on the water. The fishing side is genuinely serviced rather than decorative: bait and tackle are sold across the counter, frozen bait is stocked, and NSW fishing licences are issued on site, making the marina a one-stop start point for a day on the river. The cafe (9528 6316) serves classic meals over the water and sells takeaway, and the licensed Thai restaurant (9528 2700) does lunch and dinner with river views, both handling takeaway for boat crews. There is no fuel wharf or travel lift; larger haul-outs and fuel runs go to other Georges River facilities downstream toward Botany Bay. Practical touches abound: staff actively guide first-time kayakers and canoeists on where to land, the marina asks visitors to take care on busy weekends when hire boats, paddlers and the Como pleasure craft fleet share the same small patch of river, and the whole operation is reachable without a car. For river locals it functions as the default service address for everything from an impeller change to a set of new cockpit covers.
Local sailing knowledge
Como sits on the northern bank of the Georges River at the point where the old 1885 railway bridge, Sydney's first major bridge, crosses the water; the original bridge now carries pedestrians and cyclists beside its replacement, and from a hire boat you can inspect both up close. The river here is tidal and wide, well marked, and sheltered from sea conditions, but first-timers should note the shallow margins and oyster racks upriver and the busy boat traffic on summer weekends. Upstream the river narrows into the Georges River National Park, with picnic spots at Fitzpatrick Park and Jewfish Point, mangrove-lined reaches and the Woronora River junction all within a hired boat's range; downstream opens toward Oatley Bay, Lime Kiln Bay and eventually Botany Bay for the ambitious. Fishing is the local obsession: bream and flathead along the racks and drop-offs, whiting on the flats, and the hire staff will mark productive spots on their river map rather than leaving you to guess. Ashore, the marina's Thai restaurant and cafe mean you can eat without moving the car, and Como village has a handful of shops; the Como Hotel, a short walk up the hill, has looked over this reach of river since the nineteenth century. Public transport is a real asset: trains from the city reach Como station in about half an hour, and it is a level ten-minute walk to the marina, so a car-free boating day is entirely feasible. The area's history rewards attention: Como was a fashionable pleasure resort in the steam era, and the pleasure grounds, baths and boat sheds that once lined this bank are the direct ancestors of today's marina. For trailer boats there are public ramps nearby, but the hire fleet means many visitors never launch anything at all, which is precisely how this place has worked since the 1890s.