Marina service
Great Sandy Straits Marina
About
Great Sandy Straits Marina at a glance
176-berth marina for 8m to 30m vessels in Urangan Boat Harbour, at the doorstep of whale-watch capital Hervey Bay and K'gari (Fraser Island). 24-hour fuel wharf and slipway with 300-tonne and 30-tonne lifts; marine trades on site.
Service area: Hervey Bay / Fraser Coast
- Marina type
- full-service marina
- Region
- Hervey Bay / Fraser Coast
- Water body
- Urangan Boat Harbour, Hervey Bay
- Wet berths
- 176
- Maximum vessel
- 30 m
- Berth types
- casual berthing, permanent berthing
Facilities and services
- fuel
- slipway
- chandlery
- power & water
- showers & laundry
- restaurant/cafe
- travel lift
- 300t and 30t slipway lifts (largest travel lift in regional QLD)
- marine trades precinct (shipwright, mechanical, electrical, fabrication)
- boat broker
- hire car arrangements
- chandlery-food store
- souvenir and craft shops
- adjoining hotel
- whale-watch and K'gari ferry departures
- VHF 6/82
About Great Sandy Straits Marina
Great Sandy Straits Marina fills the southern arm of Urangan Boat Harbour at Hervey Bay, placing 176 berths for 8 to 30-metre vessels at the doorstep of two heavyweight attractions: the humpback whale migration that made Hervey Bay famous, and K'gari (Fraser Island), whose western anchorages begin just across the strait. The marina is the operational hub of the bay's tourism fleet - whale-watch catamarans including the long-running Quick Cat II load passengers here from 7am in the July-to-October season, and the Kingfisher Bay Resort ferries run from the harbour beside it - yet it retains a working character thanks to its slipway and the marine trades clustered around the hardstand. Urangan itself is Hervey Bay's historic seaside quarter, taking its name from a Kabi word for dugong or small shellfish, and the 868-metre Urangan Pier, a surviving fragment of the deep-water port that once exported sugar and timber, marches out to sea a few minutes' drive away. For cruising boats, the marina's position is the point: Hervey Bay's shallow, sandy, whale-filled waters lie inside the shelter of K'gari, so a berth here doubles as a base camp for the Great Sandy Marine Park, the strait's creek-and-flathead country, and the run south past Inskip Point to Tin Can Bay or north to Bundaberg. The clientele mixes liveaboards, cruising yachts, game fishers and the charter fleet, with the Hervey Bay Boat Club five minutes' walk away supplying the social life. The harbour's dual role as tourism port and service port gives the marina a rhythm all its own: dawn belongs to the whale-watch and ferry crews readying their boats, midday to the trickle of cruisers arriving off the strait, and late afternoon to fishos weighing in at the cleaning tables. Few Queensland marinas put a berth-holder this close to a World Heritage island while keeping city-level services within a short drive, and that combination underpins steady demand for both wet berths and hardstand space.
Marina facilities
The marina offers casual and permanent berthing across its 176 berths, with power and water at the pontoons and a secure, gated environment; toilets, showers and a laundry serve the berth-holders, and hire-car arrangements can be made through the office, which is useful because the harbour sits about ten minutes' drive from Hervey Bay's central shopping. A 24-hour fuel wharf handles diesel and petrol for the marina, the charter fleet and the public, and a chandlery-food store onsite covers hardware, bait and basic provisions, supplemented by a souvenir shop, local craft shop, restaurant and cafe within the complex and hotel accommodation adjoining. Haul-out is the facility that distinguishes Great Sandy Straits from most Queensland marinas: the onsite slipway operates a 300-tonne travel lift - the largest in regional Queensland when SMC Marine built it - alongside a 30-tonne unit, giving the harbour capacity for everything from trailer boats to big commercial cats and trawlers. A range of marine tradespeople work from the precinct, covering shipwright, mechanical, electrical and fabrication work, and a boat broker operates from the marina. The ferry terminal adjoining the marina stocks some grocery items, and a local bus service connects the harbour to the city centre. Berth enquiries run through the office on (07) 4125 3822 or VHF channels 6 and 82. The combination - fuel at all hours, serious lifting capacity, trades onsite, provisioning close by and the Boat Club's restaurants and bars a five-minute walk - makes this the natural service stop for boats working the Fraser Coast, and cyclone-season demand for hardstand and heavy lifts is correspondingly strong.
Local sailing knowledge
Approaching Urangan Boat Harbour is forgiving by Queensland standards. From the north, boats round the bay inside K'gari's lee through well-marked channels; from the south, the route comes up the Great Sandy Strait past Big Woody Island with careful attention to tides - the strait's flats are extensive and the leads must be followed. The harbour entrance is dredged and marked, with the ferry and whale-watch traffic a reminder to keep speeds and wash down. Tides in Hervey Bay are moderate, but the strait funnels streams that matter to slower yachts, so plan southbound passages around them. The cruising ground speaks for itself: Platypus Bay on K'gari's north-west is where the whales rest with their calves from July to early November, and a private boat drifting engines-off will often be approached; keep the legal distances. The strait's western shore offers protected anchorages at Garrys Anchorage, Kingfisher Bay and the Mary River mouth, and beach camping permits open up the island's eastern surf side for crew with 4WD ambitions. Provisioning is easy - Urangan's shops are walkable for basics and the city has full supermarkets, marine suppliers and hospitals. The Boat Club's courtesy bus covers the trip into town for marina guests. History buffs get the pier, built in the 1910s and once nearly 1.1 kilometres long, and the day-trip run to the Mary River's historic port of Maryborough. One caution: summer afternoons bring sharp sea breezes and the odd storm across the bay, so reef the main early and mind the shallow banks on the way home.