You arrive on your own terms here—by tinny, charter cat, or a bareboat you've skippered from Great Keppel. The beach curves gently beneath casuarinas, its sand a fine beige dusted with broken coral. Step in and the water hugs your shins, warm and translucent, so still you can watch bream dart between bommies ten metres out. The lack of ferry traffic keeps the sand from churning; what you lose in convenience you gain in a visibility that holds even after a blow.
“It is the Keppels' calmest anchorage, cherished by sailors for water clarity that survives weather other bays cannot.”
Tropical beach hammock between palms
Mid-morning the anchorage fills with hatches clattering open, snorkel fins slapping decks, the hiss of gas stoves firing up bacon. By noon a handful of yachties wade ashore, esky handles cutting red lines into palms, and settle under the she-oaks for tinnies and cheese-and-Vegemite on Tip Top. The reef fringes the eastern point: brain coral, staghorn thickets, and enough sergeant majors to fill a primary school parade.
As the light softens, skippers radio weather updates and weigh anchor one by one, leaving the beach to a single tent, a dinghy flipped hull-up, and the whipbirds calling from the scrub behind. You rinse salt from your mask in the shallows and feel the evening breeze pick up—southwest, steady, perfect for an overnight sail back to Rosslyn Bay. The Keppels have showier beaches, but Svendsen rewards those who arrive under their own power.
