I'd have told you the F9 leaves from wharf 2. Flatly, no hedging, because that's where I've caught it every single time. Then I pulled the live Transport for NSW departures for Circular Quay and found it sitting on wharf 4 through a chunk of the peaks and every last sailing of the night. So it turns out I know one of the five Circular Quay wharves properly and I've been guessing about the rest.
The numbers here have never run in route order. Wharf 3 belongs to one route on its own while three routes share wharf 5. A couple of services swap wharves depending on the time of day as well. So rather than keep writing from memory I read off where each route actually berths, across a Monday evening and the last boats of that night, then the following weekday morning peak, the middle of the day and the evening rush, all in late July 2026.
Everything below is what came back. The indicator board at the top of the ramp still wins on the day though, so read it if there's any doubt.
The five Circular Quay wharves and who uses each one
The numbering starts at 2 and runs to 6, so there's no wharf 1 here to go hunting for. Each wharf is a finger sticking out into the cove with a face on either side, called side A and side B, which is why an app will tell you wharf 4 side B rather than just handing you a number.
- Wharf 2 is the mixed one. Side A is the Manly Fast Ferry. Side B is the F9 to Watsons Bay and Rose Bay, plus the Captain Cook service up the Lane Cove River to Hunters Hill. The F7 to Double Bay uses side B around the middle of the day and often goes from wharf 4 in the peaks, so check the board for that one.
- Wharf 3 is the F1 to Manly and nothing else, both sides of it, until the evening. There's a switch after dark that you'll want to know about.
- Wharf 4 is the lower north shore. F2 to Taronga Zoo, F5 to Neutral Bay and F6 to Mosman Bay.
- Wharf 5 heads west. F3 up the Parramatta River, F4 to Pyrmont Bay and F8 to Cockatoo Island and Woolwich.
- Wharf 6 is Captain Cook Cruises, so their Taronga Zoo express, the Watsons Bay run, their Manly service and the Shark Island boat.
One route on the network never touches the Quay at all. The F10 to Blackwattle Bay starts from Barangaroo, so if that's your boat none of the above is any use to you.
Which way the numbers run when you're actually walking
Memorise which way the numbers run and you'll at least always be walking the right way! Wharf 2 is the eastern end, closest to East Circular Quay and the Opera House. The numbers climb as you walk west, so wharf 6 is the far end towards The Rocks and the Harbour Bridge. The railway station sits directly above the lot of them and every ferry gate opens off the promenade underneath.
Which means if you come down at the Opera House end and your boat is on wharf 5, you have most of the length of the Quay to cover. It's a decent walk and you'll feel it if you're already cutting things fine.
Which wharf for Manly depends on who you're sailing with
Two different companies run boats to Manly out of the Quay and they leave from two different wharves. This is comfortably the most common mix-up here and it costs people a whole crossing.
The F1, the Sydney Ferries one, goes from wharf 3. The Manly Fast Ferry belongs to a private operator and it goes from wharf 2, side A. Same destination and a completely different gate, because it's a different company running it. I've written up the difference between the F1 and the fast ferry to Manly properly if you want the version with the fares and the crossing times in it.
Wharf 3 was built for the big Manly boats and that's the only thing it does. It's reliable right through the day and then it isn't. From about 8pm every single F1 in the feed had moved across to wharf 4 and it stayed that way to the last sailing of the night. They were all back on wharf 3 by the first morning run. So if you're chasing a Manly boat late, walk to wharf 4 and check the board before you commit to a queue.
The two routes that move around on you
The F9 out to Watsons Bay and Rose Bay is the one that got me. Through the middle of the day it's wharf 2 side B every time I looked. Then the peaks start dipping it across to wharf 4. After about 8pm it's wharf 4 for the rest of the night. The F7 to Double Bay is the messier of the pair, because it came up on wharf 4 more often than it came up on wharf 2 across everything I pulled. If either of those is your regular boat, walking to a gate on muscle memory will eventually cost you a crossing.
Everything else sat exactly where you'd want it, which is genuinely good news! The only wobble was an F8 to Cockatoo Island turning up on wharf 4 twice in the early morning, out of dozens of sailings that went where the timetable said they would. So for everything except the F7 and the F9, the number in the timetable will be right nearly every time. Give the board a look anyway on your way down.
The board leads with a destination, not a route number
This one catches people on the western wharves. Route numbers are how the network gets drawn on a map, while the indicator board leads with where the boat is actually going. On some routes that's a different place every half hour.
The F3 up the Parramatta River is the big one. Across the departures I looked at off wharf 5 it called itself Sydney Olympic Park, Parramatta, Rydalmere and Chiswick, all under the same route number, because how far up the river a service runs varies through the day. Past Rydalmere it also depends on the tide. Transport for NSW publishes the low tide replacement bus arrangements for exactly that. The F8 does a smaller version of the same thing, reading Cockatoo Island on most runs and Woolwich on others. So if you're scanning for a number and not finding it, scan for the suburb instead.
Questions people ask at the top of the ramp
Is there a Circular Quay ferry map?
There is and it's a good one! Transport for NSW publishes a Circular Quay precinct map as a PDF, covering the wharves and the rest of the interchange on one page. Save it to your phone before a trip you don't make often. I reckon it answers the question faster than the board does, because you can read it while you're still walking.
What leaves from Circular Quay wharf 3?
The F1 to Manly and nothing else, off both faces of it. It's the one gate here you can walk to without thinking about it, with the single catch that the late sailings move over to wharf 4. Everything before about 8pm in my sample was on wharf 3.
What do side A and side B actually mean?
Each wharf has two berths, one on each face. They're lettered rather than numbered so nobody confuses a berth with the wharf itself. Side A and side B have their own gates and their own screens, so wharf 4 side A and wharf 4 side B are two different queues at the same building. When your app hands you the letter, use it.
Which wharf for Manly at Circular Quay?
Wharf 3 for the F1, which is the big Sydney Ferries boat you tap on with your Opal card. Wharf 2 side A for the Manly Fast Ferry, which is a different company again. Wharf 4 for the late F1 sailings, roughly from 8pm through to the last one home.
Can I set an alert for a specific Circular Quay wharf?
No. No app is going to offer you wharf 3 as a choice either. Circular Quay comes through as one place, the same way it works when you're standing on the concourse. The wharf number turns up attached to the individual departure instead. So an alert covers the ferries leaving the Quay whichever gate they go from, which I reckon is fine here, because the number you want is sitting on the departure line by the time you're reading it anyway.
Which wharf is Captain Cook Cruises?
Wharf 6, right down at the Harbour Bridge end. Their ticket office is there too. One exception is worth knowing about. Their Lane Cove River service to Hunters Hill goes from wharf 2 side B, so don't walk the length of the Quay for that one. They also shift berths for works now and then, so give their own site a look before a trip you've paid for.
Most apps show the berth as a short code on the departure line, so an F3 leaving the Quay reads as something like F5B. That decodes as ferry, wharf 5, side B. Once you can read those three characters at a glance you stop needing any of this, because the answer is already sitting in your hand while you're still walking down.
So that's your wharf sorted before you get anywhere near the gate, which is the whole reason I went and checked this properly. Go and catch yours!