Due to the interaction of waterflow from the two creeks as well as tidal forces, the size of the lagoon and the configuration of its outlets to the sea change continuously.

Road access is to the southwest of the lagoon, and access to the beach from the car parking area is usually via stairs that descend to the outlet of Cootes Creek in the east, but (where the outlet is carrying large volumes of water) sometimes change to a seasonally placed bridge across the west of the lagoon.

Matthew Flinders, George Bass and a boy, William Martin had been exploring the south-coast from Port Jackson as far as Lake Illawarra, in a small boat named Tom Thumb.

At ten 'o'clock, the wind, which had been unsettled and driving electric clouds in all directions, burst out in a gale at south, and obliged us to get up the anchor immediately, and run before it.

Catching a large wave, they "shot across a sandbar" and in moments were in the calm sheltered water of the lagoon, which in relief they named Providential Cove.