Darwin Marina

[Underdog]

If you are planning to go to Darwin and are looking for a marina DO NOT use Cullen Bay unless there is no other choice. I have just had my boat in there for a month and it is the most expensive and least provided for marina I have been in to date. They do not want short-term yachties there, yet accept them, charge them like a wounded bull (including a $270 fee for two uses of the lock, one in, one out) and make little provision for living aboard your boat.
There is a separate dock, where I was put (for the same price as the other land connected ones) meaning I had to use the tender to get to the amenities block, and ‘amenities block’ is really far too grand a term for what was there. A single toilet stall, urinal, two washbasins and two showers was the sum total of what was a ‘block (this for a few hundred boats!). No air-conditioning (and this the tropics) but a big fan that had a timing switch when turned on. This was broken so the fan ran all the time. Management solution was to pull the plug! It took me some ingenuity to get up to the plug and reconnect it. The ‘block’ was not cleaned at all for the first few days I was there and then was done intermittently and partially at best.
Electricity is charged for too and I have just seen another deduction of $230 from my account for use of that for 2 weeks – 2 weeks! I have no A/c, no Dehum, it was used to power a single bulb sometimes at night, run my fridge/freezer twice a day for maybe 3 hours total and that is it…….
Oh, and if you want fuel there, outside the lock is a fuelling station that needs the flexibility of a floor gymnast, the chain handling skills of an escapologist and cat burglar experience to access without injury. AND the damn fuel was contaminated – I have just had to change fuel filters – again. I filled jerry cans from it and when toping up the tanks using my filter was amazed at the stuff I had received from the pump and not been charged for. So – not all bad I thought……..
They have corrected the additional money now - they just guessed at a date I departed and charged accordingly - I am still however paying for a night I wasn't there!

[boatman61]

Ahhhh.... Cullen Bay... I remember it well... and the $95/hr Chandlery..

[Jammer Six]

And yet, you stayed there for a MONTH?

[Underdog]

Jammer,

The boat stayed there. I was only there for about 10 days of that. At that time there was no other choice with rally yachts all over the town.