North Harbour Marina (formerly Davis Marina)

On the Balgowlah shoreline of North Harbour, a pocket of Sydney Harbour just inside the Heads near Manly, this small marina has been a family affair for most of its life. Steve Davis, a wartime pilot, founded a boatbuilding and repair business here in 1946, completing the boatshed in 1947 and building the first marina in 1966, when the surrounding streets were still sparse.

His son Bruce took over as manager in 1982 and, with his wife Pam, ran the marina for 41 years, servicing the moorings themselves into their seventies and teaching generations of local kids to sail at Manly Yacht Club. The old pile wharves were replaced with a modern floating marina around 2011-2012, but the 1947 boatshed still stands among ancient angophoras that lean over the beach. The marina holds 28 berths and 51 licensed swing moorings between Forty Baskets Beach and North Harbour Reserve.

In 2023 the Davis family sold to developer Addenbrooke, whose managing director Ned O'Neil rebranded it North Harbour Marina. The site has genuine sailing pedigree: Kay Cottee departed from here in 1988 on the first solo non-stop unassisted circumnavigation by a woman, and Don McIntyre left from the same wharves for his 1993 Antarctic expedition. A redevelopment approved by the Northern Beaches Local Planning Panel in July 2025 will expand the marina from 35 to 44 berths capped at 15 metres, add a small public kiosk and rack storage for 72 dinghies, a plan that drew 250 opposing submissions and had superyacht berths and a liquor licence stripped out before approval.

Current operations centre on the 28-berth floating marina and 51 swing moorings laid across the bay on concrete blocks, chain and rope, with the mooring field historically serviced by the owners themselves. Fuel bowsers sit on the western jetty, and two slipways have provided haul-out capacity for decades, although repair operations were scaled back after the sub-tenant running them relocated to the Central Coast. Parking comprises 27 angled bays at the end of Gourlay Avenue, with a steep access ramp down to the foreshore.

The approved redevelopment will reconfigure berthing in detail: the western arm grows from 22 to 23 berths with new finger pontoons and berths from 6.5 to 12 metres, while the eastern arm expands from 13 to 21 berths with sizes from 8 to 15 metres, bringing the total to 44. Four soft-stand berths will be removed, the two slipways and their rails will be demolished, and ten commercial swing moorings relinquished to widen a navigation channel into adjacent Jillings Cove, for a net drop in total boat capacity from 86 to 85.

A hole-in-the-wall kiosk for up to 20 patrons will operate 7am to 4pm daily without alcohol, the marina building gains an extended deck, and racks over the old slipway footprint will store 72 dinghies and passive craft to clear the foreshore. Marina operating hours under the consent are 9am to 4pm weekdays and 9am to 5pm weekends, with berth and mooring holders retaining access outside those hours. Mooring servicing remains part of the operation, with the licensed moorings requiring regular inspection of blocks, chain and rope.

The batch of approved works signals where the services are heading: more berths in the popular sub-15-metre range, dinghy storage to clean up the foreshore, and a modest kiosk rather than the superyacht and licensed-cafe concept first proposed.

North Harbour is one of Sydney Harbour's quieter corners, a bush-edged bight on the northern side between Dobroyd Head and Manly Cove, well inside the Heads so there is no bar and ocean swell rarely penetrates. The bay shoals gently around its edges, the mooring field occupies the middle ground, and Jillings Cove alongside the marina is shallow enough that the approved works include widening its channel by pulling out moorings.

Tides follow the standard Sydney Harbour pattern of roughly two metres on springs, and the main traffic is weekend sailors, kayakers and the odd superyacht anchor-out further towards the entrance. Forty Baskets Beach, named for the fish catches once hauled there, lies a short walk east, and North Harbour Reserve gives a grassy foreshore with a playground. Provisioning is easy by Sydney standards: Balgowlah's supermarkets and shops are up the hill, buses run to Manly and the city, and Manly's wharf, pubs and restaurants are a few minutes away by car or ferry.

Manly Yacht Club and its active dinghy and keelboat scene sit just around the corner, which explains the marina's long association with sailing families. For visiting boats the moorings offer a calm, cheap night compared with the harbour's commercial marinas, with a dinghy row to the beach. Southerlies fetch across the bay and can make the outer moorings lively, but the inner berths under the angophoras are among the most sheltered berths on the northern harbour.

Kayakers and paddleboarders use the bay heavily on weekends, and the rocks around the headlands hold respectable fish for those who know the tides. Parking at Gourlay Avenue is limited, which keeps visitor numbers manageable even in summer.