The places worth pointing the boat at, and what you need to know before you go.
10 on the map. See them all at once.
Hayman Island
South Stradbroke Island
Boat-only access, fifteen minutes from the ramp, and a beach you can anchor off and step straight onto. North Currigee gives you shady beachfront sites, proper amenities, flathead and whiting in the Broadwater, and surf beach a short walk over the dunes. Family camping with the boat parked out front.
Peel Island
Fifteen minutes east of Raby Bay and the water turns that impossible turquoise Horseshoe Bay is famous for. Peel is the closest thing Moreton Bay has to a proper island day trip: anchor in the shallows, swim, fish, and let the afternoon go nowhere. Just watch the tide, because the sand shelf runs 250 metres off the beach and it does not care how good your day was going.
K'gari
Nine and a half kilometres north of Urangan and the sand just appears out of the water: white silica, blue-green shallows, and a cay that grows all afternoon as the tide drops. Pelican Bank sits between fast deep-water channels on the run across to Moon Point, with fishing off the ledges and not a dingo in sight. Anchor up, let the kids loose, and keep half an eye on the current.
Coming soon!
Moreton Island
An hour or two northeast across Moreton Bay, past the shipping lanes, and the rusted spines of fifteen scuttled ships come up out of the water. Behind them is calm anchorage, coral, dolphins at sunset and 98% national park at your back. Tangalooma is the day trip every Brisbane boatie should have done at least once.
Deep anchorage at all tides, a licensed café on the Broadwater, and a campground you can walk to from the pontoon. Tipplers is the Gold Coast's easiest island weekend: tailor and dart off the eastern beach, whales going past from June, and wallabies through camp at dusk.
A beautiful little beach no more than 30 meters long.
North Stradbroke Island
Toad Bank Sandbar is a shifting stretch of golden sand that emerges with the tide, offering a stunning, secluded spot right in the middle of Moreton Bay.
Wavebreak Island
Wave Break was dumped into the Broadwater in the 1980s to take the sting out of the Gold Coast Seaway, and the name tells you exactly what it does. What the engineers accidentally built was the easiest boating day on the coast: five minutes from The Spit, white sand, clear water on the high tide, and a skyline behind you for the photos. Beach the bow, throw the awning up, done.
