Couran Cove Island Resort Marina

About the marina

Couran Cove Island Resort Marina sits on the sheltered western foreshore of South Stradbroke Island, looking across the Gold Coast Broadwater and roughly twenty minutes by boat from Runaway Bay. It was built as the marine heart of the Couran Cove eco-resort, a $150 million, two-stage project started in early 1997 on a 151-hectare environmentally sensitive site and opened in November 1998, two months ahead of schedule. The figure most associated with the venture was Ron Clarke, the former champion distance runner and later Gold Coast mayor, who championed it through Interpacific Resorts. Watpac's build paired 192 beachside apartments and over-water recreation buildings with a marina reported at 102 berths, all delivered under a strict environmental management plan. The resort never found financial footing and shut in 2011 after a decade of losses, then passed through several owners and operated only intermittently. Its decline turned into open crisis in the first half of 2023, when electricity, water and sewerage were disconnected amid a dispute between the body corporates and the resort-owning Island Resorts companies over roughly $25 million in alleged unpaid fees. Between 60 and 70 permanent residents now live off-grid on solar, batteries, water tanks, spear pumps and gas bottles, with fire hydrants inoperative. The Supreme Court appointed a receiver over the body corporate debt in October 2024, and Supreme and Federal Court proceedings, including an ASIC examination of director conduct, continued through 2025. The marina remains in place but access is restricted while the body corporates advocate for it to be reopened to all watercraft. A separate $500 million resort proposal by EDG Capital elsewhere on the island is early-stage and unapproved.

Berthing & shoreside services

Any honest account of services at Couran Cove has to start with its status: this is a closed, infrastructure-rich marina whose systems have been switched off. The physical plant remains - floating berths within a dredged basin on the Broadwater side of the island, built to serve resort guests, residents and day visitors - but there is no operating marina office, no fuel berth, no pump-out and no reticulated power or water on the pontoons, because the island's diesel power station, water plant and sewerage plant were all disconnected in 2023. Berthing today is effectively a private arrangement among lot owners. Private moorings on Z-arm are advertised through local owner networks at around $4,000 plus GST per annum, for boats to a maximum of 35 feet, and several residents keep tenders and runabouts as their only transport link. There is no ferry service to Couran Cove at present; the Tipplers passenger ferry lands about two kilometres north, followed by a sand track walk. Heavy logistics go by private barge, which local contractors quote at $300 to $500 per hour for moving vehicles, building materials and furniture. On-island movement is by battery buggy or bicycle only. For everything else - fuel, haul-out, chandlery, mechanical work - skippers use the mainland facilities at Runaway Bay, Southport and the Coomera marine precinct, all within easy reach across the Broadwater. The body corporates are actively pushing to have the marina reopened to all watercraft, and any future resort redevelopment or court-ordered resolution would likely see berthing, power and water progressively restored. Until then, visiting boats should treat Couran Cove as a restricted-access anchorage precinct rather than a functioning marina, and confirm arrangements with the body corporate before tying up.

Local context in YouSail

This is directory context, not navigation advice. Check current charts, notices and official boating resources before passage.

Approaching Couran Cove is straightforward Broadwater work. From the Gold Coast Seaway - a trained, dredged entrance that still demands respect on the ebb in any swell - a vessel turns north past the Spit and follows the marked main channel up the western side of South Stradbroke Island. Shallow banks fringe the island and the leads should be followed closely, particularly on a falling tide; the Broadwater is littered with sand spits that dry at low water. Couran Cove's basin lies roughly opposite Runaway Bay, where the nearest fuel, slipways and chandleries are found, and Tipplers Passage continues north toward Jumpinpin for boats heading to southern Moreton Bay. Anchoring off the island's western shore in settled weather is a long-standing local habit, and the Tipplers precinct to the north has a kiosk and ferry landing. The island itself is the quirk here. South Stradbroke is a narrow sand island only twenty-odd kilometres from Surfers Paradise, yet it has no road bridge; its eastern side carries a quality surf beach, while the western side holds wallabies, birdlife and the remains of one of Queensland's most ambitious tourism experiments. The people who use the area now are a mix of Broadwater day-trippers, jet-ski tour operators, and the 60 to 70 off-grid residents whose private boats are lifelines to the mainland. Visitors should respect that this is somebody's off-grid home town: keep wash down near the moorings, do not berth without an arrangement, and remember that emergency services and reticulated firefighting water are limited. The Wasp Creek Rural Fire Brigade supports the island community.