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“Having a permanent footprint down here from the Water Police’s perspective has been on our radar for a long time, but the worlds have had to align for it to happen,” Senior Sergeant Lynden Blackey said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve done a lot of work over the past 12 to 18 months to get this off\u00a0the ground.<\/p>\n
“It allows us to be a bit more strategic and timely in our responses to jobs that are at the bottom end of the bay and also offshore.”<\/p>\n
The Queenscliff site is now the Water Police’s third base, after the headquarters at Williamstown and a smaller base at Paynesville in Victoria’s east.<\/p>\n
Leading Senior Constable Shaun Wallace said the new location was extremely useful in an operational sense.<\/p>\n
“A lot of the boating population within the Western Region, they all funnel down through the Bellarine, and with the pelagic fish – the tuna and kingfish – returning to the heads and offshore of western Victoria, a lot of big boats and fishing is done from either Queenscliff, Ocean Grove or around the Bellarine Peninsula.<\/p>\n
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“So having a boat down here to safety audit those boats heading offshore but also respond to any incidents if we need to has been\u00a0really good.”<\/p>\n
He said fishing traffic could be very heavy on the water in favourably low wind conditions.<\/p>\n
“If you had been here the other day, there were boats everywhere, from all the way from Intended Head and St Leonards around to Clifton Springs; you could have walked across the water on the amount of boats that were out there.”<\/p>\n
The Queenscliff unit also works closely with Queenscliff Coast Guard, Southern Peninsula Rescue and Coast Watch Ocean Grove to conduct operations in Port Phillip Bay and offshore in Bass Strait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BOATING safety on the western and southern side of Port Phillip Bay has been greatly improved by a new permanent outpost of Victoria Police’s Water Police squad in Queenscliff. The unit has moved into the Queenscliff police station on Gellibrand Street and is also using a berth at the nearby Queenscliff Harbour for one of […]<\/p>\n