Port Hinchinbrook Marina (Hinchinbrook Harbour)

About the marina

Port Hinchinbrook began life in the 1990s as one of Queensland's most ambitious canal estates, a marina, resort and residential precinct carved into the mangrove shoreline two kilometres south of Cardwell by developer Keith Williams, the man behind Sanctuary Cove. Its promise was direct access to the Hinchinbrook Channel and the reef beyond, and for a decade or so the marina filled with game boats, cruisers and commercial vessels. Then Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi crossed the coast in February 2011, shredding the precinct and accelerating a siltation problem that has defined the place ever since. Ownership passed in 2016 to The Passage Holdings, which rebranded the estate Hinchinbrook Harbour and talked up staged redevelopment, but the marina basin and access canal kept shoaling, the resort buildings stayed closed and the berths emptied. The precinct's fortunes turned again in late 2025 when the Queensland Government declared the 140-hectare site the state's first-ever Provisional Priority Development Area, an unprecedented planning intervention that put Economic Development Queensland in charge of restoring it as a tourism, commercial and residential destination. Land acquisition, a Provisional Land Use Plan and early site works followed in February 2026, and dredging contractors were market-sounded in mid-2026. Whether the revival succeeds or joins the long list of false dawns is the question Cardwell asks daily; for now the estate is a striking study in both the ambition and the fragility of tropical canal development. Canal-front houses still line the waterways and a small community lives on site, keeping watch over a precinct whose concrete bones far exceed its current activity.

Berthing & shoreside services

Honest assessment: services are minimal and access-constrained. The public boat ramp at Port Hinchinbrook, reached over the Royce Fitzgerald Bridge, is described by locals as all-weather but shallow at low tide, and it remains the precinct's working front door; one side reopened after the 2024-25 dredging campaign and temporary toilets were installed in the carpark during works. A $1.5 million federally funded Cassowary Coast Regional Council dredge of the main canal was completed in January 2025, only for February flooding to reload the channel with debris, cleared by April. A 2023 feasibility study priced a long-term dredging and maintenance solution at about $20 million, which gives scale to the problem: local skippers report needing around 1.8 metres of tide to get in and out, where 0.9 metres once sufficed, and propellers routinely chew mud. Marina berths exist but are largely empty, with no published casual berthing, fuel, power or pump-out services currently trading. Port Hinchinbrook Marine, a boat servicing business, still operates in the marine area, though its shipyard vessel count has roughly halved since Yasi. The local Coast Guard's access is tidal, a safety issue the state restoration plan explicitly targets. Under the PPDA, EDQ has committed to reinstating all-tide access to the marina and public waterways, managing spoil to protect the channel, extinguishing the conformed deed over the land and procuring a lead dredging contractor, with ICM and RPS appointed project managers and early acid-sulphate soil repairs under way in 2026. Until that work lands, treat the facility as a ramp with potential rather than a functioning marina.

Local context in YouSail

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

If you do launch here, work the tides. The entrance channel shoals badly, locals advise against arriving on a falling tide anywhere near low water, and the mud is destructive to running gear. The reward is position: Port Hinchinbrook sits dead opposite the middle reaches of the Hinchinbrook Channel, minutes from the island-side creeks that hold barramundi and mangrove jack, and the sheltered run either north to Cardwell or south toward the Seymour and Herbert systems never involves open sea. Dugongs feed in the area, and their welfare is central to the long-running argument over how much dredging is acceptable, so expect scrutiny of any wash and speed. Cardwell, two kilometres north, supplies fuel around the clock at the Puma roadhouse, an IGA, bakery, butcher, pharmacy and ice works, and the Cardwell jetty ramp is a workable alternative at mid tide and above. Many locals now tow to Dungeness at Lucinda instead, where tidal access is markedly better and a $12 million breakwater and dredging project is queued for state funding. The estate itself is quiet to the point of eerie after dark, with empty resort buildings behind the mangroves and mostly resident canal homes occupied. Cyclone season runs November to April, and Yasi's legacy is written into every local conversation about insurance, moorings and whether to commit a boat to this coast long term. Watch the weather: heavy rain in the Herbert River catchment sends logs and debris down the channel within days, and February flood debris in 2025 undid months of dredging work.