The meeting, held at the Eden Fishermen’s Club, was chaired by former federal Liberal Member for Eden-Monaro Gary Nairn who also oversaw the secret ballot.

Attendees to the meeting, which was organised by the Port of Eden Marina group, were asked to cast their vote in favour of one of two options.

Option one was for a marina at Snug Cove plus cruise ships of a size that currently visit the port.

The second option was for no commercial marina, providing for much larger cruise ships to visit in the future.

The vote, announced by POEM president Fritz Drenkhahn to the Magnet this morning, was 97 in favour of the first option, 20 in favour of the second, with approximately 20-30 people abstaining from the vote.

The choice between the two options failed to please everyone, with one member of the audience suggesting that a third option be for the proponents of Eden’s two marinas to work together.  

Speaking to the meeting last night, Mr Drenkhahn said that Batemans Bay and Bermagui had marinas with long waiting lists.

Combined with the visiting cruise ship industry in summer,  a marina would mean Eden’s long term future was secure, he said.

“If we drop one for the other we will do the future of Eden a major disservice,” he said. 

The meeting was turned over to questions from the floor.

Some attendees questioned the need for a government-funded wave attenuator, and wanted to know the differences between fixed and floating attenuators.

Other speakers feared that a wave attenuator would damage the seabed or have a detrimental visual impact in the port.

One person, who described themselves as a “born and bred Eden person” said noone in the town would disagree that a marina was needed.

But Cruise Eden was a “viable, up and running business” whereas the proposal for a marina at Snug Cove was a “concept only” at this stage, the speaker said.

Another speaker said the town was sick of waiting for work to start on the government-funded wharf extension.

He feared that ongoing delays would result in the government saying ‘bugger that’ and pulling out of the multi-million project.

A surprise attendee at the meeting was Bob Carter, the spokesman for the proposed marina/hotel development at Cattle Bay.   

This morning, Mr Drenkhahn said that key message from the meeting was the question of how the NSW Government could claim to have done a review of the Snug Cove development without considering the proposed Snug Cove marina project that somehow, had to fit in behind the wave attenuator.

“They should go back and redo it,” Mr Drenkhahn said.

“It seems to be a case of asking the wrong question in order to achieve a required answer rather than asking the right question and possibly getting an answer that may ruffle some feathers,” he said.

“It was also noted that the Eden Harbour Master has advised that a 160m berthing pocket is adequate and safe for all lengths of cruise vessel.

“Clearly, the community regards the Snug Cove safe harbour and marina as a key component for the future of Snug Cove and the Eden economy, along with the wharf extension.

“Enough time has been spent already, POEM calls on the NSW Government to quickly move to the design and construction of the wharf extension and a fixed panel attenuator 160m from the planned wharf extension,” he said.

Meanwhile, Bega mayor Michael Britten discussed the Eden Marina Cattle Bay proposal with the head of NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet last week during a tour of key infrastructure projects either recently completed or in the planning stage.

The mayor took copies of Eden Marina Cattle Bay's 16-page project statement to show the government officials.