Categories of waters

You should know what type of waters you will be operating your boat in because that determines the minimum safety equipment you must have.

Read the Marine Safety guide. This includes the type of personal flotation device or life jacket, that you must carry on your recreational boat.

Inland waters

Inland waters includes:

• non-tidal rivers
• lakes
• dams
• billabongs.

Intermediate waters

Intermediate waters includes:

• all tidal rivers
• sheltered waters areas (see below)
• all other coastal waters up to two nautical miles from the coastline.

Open waters

This means beyond intermediate waters.

For recreational and commercial boats

Sheltered waters

All of the following are sheltered waters in Northern Territory by location:

• Bathurst Island - Port Hurd, Gullala Creek, Perakery Creek
• Boucaut Bay, Milingimbi Inlet and Castlereagh Bay
• Bynoe Harbour
• Cobourg Peninsula - Port Bremer and Raffles Bay
• Dalywoi Bay
• Gove Harbour
• Haul Round Island
• Junction Bay, Maningrida
• Port Bradshaw
• Port Essington, Cobourg
• Port of Darwin - all waters landward of an imaginary line running approximately from Lee Point to Charles Point
• Vanderlin Islands.

List of sheltered waters by area includes all inland waters and one nautical mile seawards from the mean low watermark on the coast, including the coasts of islands.

Read the schedule of gazetted sheltered waters below.

Schedule of gazetted sheltered waters (smooth and partially smooth waters): GN33 PDF (44.5 KB)
Schedule of gazetted sheltered waters (smooth and partially smooth waters): GN33 DOCX (62.2 KB)