Long Nose, Coffin Bay SA
Long Nose is a 3km long sand spit located in the Coffin Bay National Park on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.
This spot offers great flat water sailing for windsurfers & kite surfers in shallow crystal clear turquoise blue water with a white sandy bottom and no weed.
Depending on the wind direction you can sail either side of the spit. Northern side for Northerlies and Southern side in Southerlies. The spit is very low so should also make a great speed strip in a strong off-shore breeze on either side of the spit.
The water is only 40 – 60 cm deep at mid-tide so might be a bit shallow during low tide for windsurfers but you can move further out from the spit where the water is a deeper but more choppy.
Access
Whilst you can camp on the National Park side and access the beach with a 4WD, this can be difficult if you don’t have the right equipment and pets are not allowed in the National Park so if you have a dog it won’t work for you.
In this case it is best to launch from Little Douglas & sail across channel.
If you have a 4wd you can drive on to and along the beach to find your perfect rigging sport. Otherwise there is a small car park near the boat ramp at Little Douglas and just 20 paces to the water. There is not much grass to rig on so either gravel in car park or sand on beach. The water at the launch area is very protected so there is no shore break to deal with.
Potential Hazards
In places the water can get very shallow so be aware of the depth before blasting around at top speed as a fin strike on the sandy bottom is possible.
It feels a bit precarious sailing across the channel and this area is known for the odd shark, so don’t fall off and hang about in the channel.
1 Review on “Long Nose, Eyre Peninsula, SA”
I really enjoyed windsurfing here in a moderate SSE breeze.
The launch area is very protected however I sailed across the small inlet and then walked across the sandbar to the deeper water near the channel. It would have been a lot better & felt a lot safer with a sailing buddy as I was at least 3 – 4km from the launch and my watch had no cell service.
Sailing across the channels feels a bit disconcerting especially if the wind gets light. I used a 125l board so even if the wind got light I could at least get back to Little Douglas where I launched from.
Unfortunately the sun wasn’t out on the day so the video doesn’t show this spot in its glory but the water is crystal clear and that beautiful light blue colour.