Marina service
Holdfast Shores Marina
About
Holdfast Shores Marina at a glance
59-berth freehold marina on the seaward side of the Glenelg weir and lock, part of the Marina Pier dining and entertainment precinct. Facilities include floating and fixed berths, pump-out, refuelling, hardstand and haul-out, with 24-hour access to power, water and fuel; berths up to about 15 m are traded freehold.
Service area: Adelaide metro - Holdfast Bay
- Marina type
- full-service marina
- Operator
- Holdfast Shores (body corporate)
- Region
- Adelaide metro - Holdfast Bay
- Water body
- Holdfast Bay / Gulf St Vincent
- Wet berths
- 59
- Maximum vessel
- 20 m
- Berth types
- permanent berthing, casual berthing, liveaboard
Facilities and services
- fuel
- pump-out
- hardstand
- power & water
- wifi
- showers & laundry
- restaurant/cafe
- 24/7 security
- boat ramp
- lock access
- 3-phase power at berths
- haul-out and hardstand
- liveaboard permitted
- freehold berth sales
- diesel by prior arrangement
- security patrols and CCTV
- adjacent slipway to 20 tonnes
About Holdfast Shores Marina
Holdfast Shores Marina is a fifty-nine-berth freehold marina on the seaward side of the Glenelg weir and lock, forming the water level of the Marina Pier dining and apartment precinct in Holdfast Bay. Unlike the leasehold berths inside the Patawalonga Basin, berths here are sold freehold, and they change hands like real estate: a thirteen-metre berth has listed around three hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars, and a 15.1-metre berth made property news in 2023 with a price tag over one million dollars, more than many Adelaide houses at the time. That pricing reflects the two things the marina alone offers on this coast: direct access to Gulf St Vincent with no lock transit, and a berth at the foot of one of Adelaide's busiest foreshore entertainment strips, with restaurants, bars and cafes metres from the fingers and Moseley Square and the tram a short walk away. Liveaboards are permitted, which adds to the tightly held character of the place. The marina is managed through its body corporate, and owners pay annual council rates and body corporate fees on top of the purchase price, as the sales listings spell out. Development of Holdfast Shores in the early 2000s converted an ageing foreshore into an integrated residential, tourism and marina precinct, and the marina remains its centrepiece, equally used by serious cruising boats, weekend power boats and a handful of live-aboard residents. The boardwalk around the marina is public, so the fingers double as a promenade where visitors watch boats come and go from the restaurants above.
Marina facilities
The marina mixes floating and fixed berths up to about fifteen to twenty metres, each with fresh water and power connected, including three-phase supply for larger vessels, and twenty-four-hour access is standard. Sewage pump-out is available, a genuine rarity on the Adelaide coast, and refuelling is handled on site with diesel sales arranged by prior notice through the listed contact numbers, 0414 955 543 or 0428 854 917, rather than a continuously staffed fuel wharf. Hardstand and haul-out facilities support slipping work, and a separately operated slipway in the adjacent Patawalonga Basin handles boats to twenty metres and twenty tonnes for heavier maintenance. Ashore there are toilets, showers and a laundry, wifi coverage, car parking and round-the-clock security in the form of video surveillance and patrols; berth owners can extend monitoring to individual boats with motion-sensor alarms. A cafe and bar operate on-site within the Marina Pier precinct, and the dining strip supplies everything from coffee to full restaurant meals. The commercial reality of the marina is spelled out in berth listings: freehold title means stamp duty applies on purchase, both parties need conveyancers, and ongoing costs include council rates in the order of seven hundred and fifty dollars a year and body corporate fees around two thousand dollars annually for a mid-size berth. Casual berthing is limited because the berths are privately owned, so visiting boats usually arrange stays through individual owners or agents, and liveaboard occupancy is permitted under the marina's rules. Berths up to about fifteen metres are the sizes most commonly traded.
Local sailing knowledge
The great practical fact of Holdfast Shores is that it sits seaward of the lock: a berth holder can cast off and be in open gulf water within minutes, without queueing for a lock cycle, which matters on a summer evening when the Patawalonga lock is busy. The trade-off is exposure; the marina is more open to Holdfast Bay weather than the basin inside the weir, and a strong south-westerly sends surge into the outer fingers, so fender boards and good lines are standard. The approach from Gulf St Vincent is straightforward along the metropolitan coast, with the Marina Pier breakwater and the Glenelg skyline making an unmistakable daymark; the Adelaide cruising ground then runs north to Outer Harbour and the Port River or south past Brighton to Seacliff. Dolphins hunt the bay regularly, and the holdfast in Holdfast Bay commemorates the brig that rode out an 1836 gale here at the province's first settlement, a story retold aboard the Buffalo restaurant ship replica at the marina's door. Provisioning is effortless: Jetty Road's supermarkets, bakeries and bottle shops are a ten-minute walk, and the tram from Moseley Square reaches the city in about half an hour. Berth visitors should note the precinct is a public entertainment strip, so summer nights are lively rather than secluded. For visiting yachts without a private berth arrangement, the nearest alternatives are the clubs and marinas at North Haven and Outer Harbour, and the lock into the Patawalonga gives access to the basin marinas in settled conditions.