About
Marina Martha Cove at a glance
Boutique marina on the eastern shore of Port Phillip Bay with berths from 10 to 30 metres for mono and multihulls, long-term berth leases to 99 years, fuel dock and 24/7 security.
Service area: Mornington Peninsula
- Marina type
- full-service marina
- Operator
- d'Albora (Martha Cove)
- Region
- Mornington Peninsula
- Water body
- Port Phillip Bay
- Maximum vessel
- 30 m
- Berth types
- permanent berthing, casual berthing
Facilities and services
- fuel
- power & water
- showers & laundry
- 24/7 security
- ice
- restaurant/cafe
- 70t travel lift
- dry stack storage
- hardstand
- refit sheds
- boatyard
- brokerage & boat sales
- public boat ramp
- 3-phase power
- Hi-Flo fuel nozzles
- pump-out
- cafe & restaurant
- dockmaster 7 days
- berth leases to 99 years
- trailer storage
About Marina Martha Cove
Marina Martha Cove sits at the foot of Mount Martha on the eastern shore of Port Phillip Bay, inside a harbour dredged and excavated out of old farmland between Safety Beach and Martha Point. It is the marine centrepiece of Marina Village Martha Cove, a 94-hectare masterplanned waterfront community developed by the Balmain Group to a design by architect Karl Fender, and it shows: broad landscaped boardwalks, apartment buildings such as The Moorings, and a marine enterprise precinct all share the one address. With around 232 pens, the marina is deliberately pitched as a boutique operation rather than a volume one, and its point of difference in the Victorian market is tenure, with berth leases offered for terms of up to 99 years, effectively a property purchase on water. Berths run from 10 to 30 metres and take both monohulls and multihulls, and the adjacent Hidden Harbour marina holds smaller boats further up the waterway. Now operated within the d'Albora network, the marina pairs with Boatyard Martha Cove, the purpose-built haul-out and dry-stack facility completed in 2019, so owners can berth, lift, refit and store without leaving the cove. The clientele mixes local Mornington Peninsula sailors, Melbourne professionals who keep a boat fifty minutes from the CBD, and a growing number of catamaran owners drawn by the wide pens and the sheltered, all-weather entrance. Stage by stage the village has added apartments, retail and boardwalk dining around the pens, so the marina now functions as both a boat harbour and the centre of a residential community. The boatyard's dry-stack building, the first of its kind in Victoria when it opened, signalled that the precinct aimed at the top end of the state's boat care market, and the combination of secure long-term tenure, full boatyard backup and a hospitality strip within a gated harbour remains rare anywhere on Port Phillip.
Marina facilities
The berthing offer is unusually flexible. Permanent leases run to 99 years, while casual berthing can be booked for a single night, a week or month by month, with dockmaster assistance available seven days. Pens from 10 to 30 metres carry power, including three-phase outlets on the larger berths, plus water, and access is controlled by swipe cards on every marina arm backed by a 24-hour security system and on-site staff. The fuel dock on the waterway serves Premium Unleaded and diesel through Hi-Flo nozzles and operates around the clock, and berth holders have showers, laundry and parking, with sanitation pump-out access in the precinct. Boatyard Martha Cove, completed as Victoria's newest boatyard in 2019, is the serious machinery: a 70-tonne travel lift with an eight-metre beam capacity, a 10-tonne marine forklift, hardstand, work berths, enclosed refit and repair sheds, and a fully enclosed dry-stack building for boats to 35 feet that operates year-round. A mix of marine contractors and service tenants works on site, covering mechanical, electrical and refit work, and the marina sales centre and Inspire Marine handle new and brokerage boat sales plus berth sales and leasing. A public boat ramp and trailer parking serve day launchers. Food and drink are unusually well covered for a Victorian marina: the Broad Walk Cafe and Martha's Table restaurant and bar sit on the boardwalk, so crew can eat within sight of the pens. Harbour depth is maintained at about 2.4 metres, with 2.2 metres the advised maximum keel depth. The marina office coordinates casual bookings, berth leases and boatyard lifts, and the d'Albora membership program links berth holders into reciprocal rights across the group's east-coast network.
Local sailing knowledge
The harbour entrance lies between Safety Beach and Mount Martha, cut wide and deep enough to be workable in any weather, which is the whole point of the design: an all-weather refuge on a shore of Port Phillip that is otherwise exposed to south-westerly seas. Approaching from the bay, the entrance markers are clear and the channel carries around 2.4 metres; inside, the waterway splits toward the marina basin and Hidden Harbour. From the Heads, the run up the eastern shore passes Sorrento, Dromana and the off-lying Mount Martha reefs, and the eastern side of the bay gives comfortable reaching in the prevailing summer south-westerlies. Melbourne's city skyline is visible across the bay, and the CBD is under fifty minutes by road via the Mornington Peninsula Freeway, which explains much of the marina's clientele. Ashore, the precinct fronts walking and cycling paths that link through to Safety Beach and Mount Martha, and the wider peninsula supplies wineries, golf courses and hot springs within a twenty-minute drive. Cruising options from the berth are broad for a bay port: across to Williamstown or St Kilda for a city weekend, south to Sorrento and Queenscliff at the Heads, or down the eastern shore to Mornington and its pier and yacht club a few miles away. Southerly changes can make the bay uncomfortable quickly, so the marina's protected basin earns its keep as a bolt-hole when forecasts turn. Fuel, ice and provisions are available at the marina itself, and major supermarkets are a short drive away in Dromana and Mornington.