Redcliffe Marina

About the marina

Redcliffe Marina is that rarity on the Australian coast: a marina run by a state government department as public property. Occupying the northern arm of the Scarborough Boat Harbour at the tip of the Redcliffe Peninsula, it was known for years as Compass Marina before the Department of Transport and Main Roads took over management, and it now operates 74 floating berths for vessels up to 15 metres under a published fee schedule rather than a commercial tariff sheet. The arrangement gives the place a distinctive flavour. Berth allocation is by application, fees are tabled on the department's website, liveaboard permits are issued in limited numbers with their own modest charges, and the clientele is a settled community of local keelboats, motor cruisers and multihulls, many of them long-term residents whose boats double as homes. The harbour itself is an all-weather, breakwater-enclosed basin with direct access to Moreton Bay, about 40 minutes north of the Brisbane CBD, and the marina shares it with the neighbouring private Scarborough Marina, whose boatyard supplies the lift-out capacity the government marina lacks. The peninsula around it is a settled seaside community of beaches, jetties and cafe strips rather than a resort strip. Redcliffe adds the historical backdrop: the peninsula hosted Queensland's first European settlement, a short-lived 1824 penal outpost abandoned for the Brisbane River the following year, and later raised the Gibb brothers, commemorated by the Bee Gees Way walkway on the foreshore. For Brisbane boat owners priced out of the private marina market, the government fee schedule has long made it one of the more attainable ways to keep a keelboat in the water on Moreton Bay.

Berthing & shoreside services

Services are basic, transparent and priced by the metre. The 74 floating berths are stern-to pens taking vessels to 15 metres and, at a surcharge, beyond; every berth has power and water, with wi-fi, toilets and an electronic security gate, for which access tags carry a $25 refundable deposit. A bilge and sullage pump-out service is available to berth holders. The published schedule (which includes GST) starts a 10-metre monohull at $595 per month or $5,650 per year, rising to $880 per month or $7,000 annually for 15 metres, with multihulls over five metres of beam charged roughly half as much again. Berth applications do not confer liveaboard rights: living aboard requires a separate approval, numbers are limited, and the charges are deliberately light, $60 a week for a single or $80 for a couple, and $220 to $280 per calendar month, with the first days complimentary. Casual berthing exists but is constrained by low vacancy. Depth in the marina is under two metres at low water, manoeuvring room is rated tight, and tidal flow through the harbour arm demands attention when berthing. There is no fuel wharf, travel lift, hardstand or chandlery within the TMR marina; those needs are met next door at the private Scarborough Marina, which runs a 35-tonne travel lift, a Wiggins forklift, hardstand and drystack launching for power boats to 10 metres plus tenant marine trades. The marina manager is reachable by mobile for berth enquiries, and berth layout and navigation plans are published on the department's site.

Local context in YouSail

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

Scarborough Boat Harbour is the most protected all-weather harbour on the northern Moreton Bay shore, and the cruising ground at its doorstep explains the waiting lists. Moreton Island's western anchorages, the Tangalooma wrecks and the Big Sandhills lie a comfortable day sail across the bay; northward, the leads into Pumicestone Passage open the sheltered run to Caloundra; and the bay's island-fringed waters hold mackerel, snapper and whiting, with humpback whales passing through from June to November. Inside the harbour the quirks are practical: depths are modest, so deeper keelboats work the tides, and the marina's low-water depths of under two metres rule out big draughts. Ashore, the Redcliffe Peninsula operates as a self-contained seaside town. Scarborough's cafes and takeaway strip front the harbour, the Sunday markets fill Redcliffe Parade, Suttons Beach and the Settlement Cove lagoon handle swimming days, and the Bee Gees Way display on the foreshore marks the suburb where the Gibb brothers signed their first contract. Supplies, marine hardware and public transport are all close, with Brisbane's CBD about 35 kilometres away by road or reachable by bus and the Redcliffe Peninsula rail line, and whale-watching boats work the bay from the harbour in season. Local history runs deep for those interested: the 1824 convict settlement at Redcliffe was Queensland's first European foothold before it shifted to the Brisbane River the following year. For berth holders the appeal is simple arithmetic: government-scale fees, an honest pump-out, a quiet liveaboard policy and a bay full of weekend destinations.