⚠ NOT FOR NAVIGATION. Use official charts and tide tables. This page is a planning aid only. Navigate with the current AHO chart, MSQ notices to mariners, official tide tables and local advice.

Southern Gold Coast & Tweed cruising guide

Official MSQ Beacon to Beacon mapsSGC-4 map (PDF)SGC-5 map (PDF)SGC-6 map (PDF)SGC-7 map (PDF)Free official PDFs from Maritime Safety Queensland. Each button opens the right sheet.Official NSW boating maps (NSW waters)Official NSW boating map: Map 1A Tweed River and Cudgen Creek (PDF)Official NSW boating map: Map 1A Upper Tweed River, Cudgera and Mooball Creeks (PDF)Official NSW boating map: Map 1 Tweed Heads to Ballina (PDF)NSW maps © Transport for NSW. All NSW boating maps.
Tweed River to Surfers Paradise · 3 guidesLast checked: 18 October 2026Report a correction

The border end of the coast. The Tweed River bar at Point Danger is the first or last shelter for boats heading north or south, but it's a New South Wales river bar, open to the swell. North of it, Currumbin and Tallebudgera creeks are bars for locals in small boats, and the Nerang River and the Surfers Paradise canals are reached from inside the Gold Coast Seaway, not from the sea. For most keelboats the honest summary is this: the Tweed if conditions suit, otherwise carry on to the Seaway.

Map of the Southern Gold Coast & Tweed region (Tweed River to Surfers Paradise) with a numbered marker for each of its 3 cruising guide pages.
Numbers match the guide list below. Each name links to its page. Positions are approximate. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Positions are approximate and for orientation only. Not a chart. Not for navigation.
  1. 1Tweed River Bar · Bar crossing / river entrance
  2. 2Currumbin & Tallebudgera Creeks · Bar crossings
  3. 3Nerang River & Surfers Paradise · River and canals

Guides in this region, south to north

Tweed River Bar

Bar crossing / river entrance

Planning notes for crossing the Tweed River bar at Point Danger: approach, Danger Reefs, waiting anchorage and what to check first.

Last checked: 18 October 2026

Currumbin & Tallebudgera Creeks

Bar crossings

Currumbin and Tallebudgera creek bars are for locals only. Hazards, the PWC ban, speed limits and VMR Currumbin. Not for navigation.

Last checked: 18 October 2026

Nerang River & Surfers Paradise

River and canals

Nerang River and Surfers Paradise canals: 6-knot rules, shallows above Ross Street Bridge, bridge clearances, ramps and ferry stops.

Last checked: 18 October 2026 ⚠ 1 item flagged unverified

Entrances from the sea

Before any bar crossing, read MSQ's bar advice and the current notices to mariners. Depths on bars change between surveys.

Neighbouring regions

About these guides

These are planning notes written by a working delivery skipper from public sources: MSQ maps and notices, NGA Pub. 127 and OpenStreetMap. They are not for navigation. Use the official AHO charts, current MSQ notices to mariners, official tide tables and local advice. Each page shows when its facts were last checked and flags anything dated or unconfirmed.

Sources & credits

Maritime Safety Queensland. Contains Maritime Safety Queensland data (Beacon to Beacon guide, notices to mariners, nav-aid open data, pump-out map C2-335, speed-limit schedule, tide information) © State of Queensland (Department of Transport and Main Roads), licensed under CC BY 4.0. Facts restated and summarised in our own words. Not endorsed by MSQ or TMR.

Queensland legislation. Transport Operations (Marine Safety) Regulation 2016 and Transport Infrastructure (Waterways Management) Regulation 2012 © State of Queensland, CC BY 4.0. Summarised; the authorised versions at legislation.qld.gov.au prevail.

NGA. Background from NGA Pub. 127, Sailing Directions (Enroute) East Coast of Australia and New Zealand (2025), U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a US Government work in the public domain. Parts of it are out of date; where a page leans on it, we say so. Not endorsed by NGA.

OpenStreetMap. Map tiles and some facility positions © OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence (ODbL).

Others. Facts from local authority pages and notices (for example the Gold Coast Waterways Authority), volunteer marine rescue sites and businesses' own websites are cited for fact only and restated in our own words. Listing a business is not an endorsement.

Spotted something wrong or out of date? Report a correction and tell us what you saw and when.

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