Liitle island hillarys?  You're aware its surrounded by a fishing prohibited sanctuary zone?  Outside of that you may find some squid and whiting on the sand and weed banks, and some skippy around the nearby reefs.

Webapp.navionics.com

use that site, the zones are visible

 Lots of burley mate even head a little further say 3 mile be a much better chance of bigger n better fish

 Can fish the sand flats for herring, gardies, blowies (LOTS), snook and the odd skippy. I find small unweighted pieces of mulie on a small (size 1-4) circle hook the best option here otherwise 3 inch powerbait minnows on a 1/8th jighead also works well if you can avoid the blowies. If you get a herring put it out live, never knwo what might be swimming by.

Another option is to go a few hundred metres north and look for deep holes around 9-10m deep and anchor on the edge of reef, burley up and some very good skippy can be caught here. Again on unweighted pieces of mulie. Also chuck out a drift bait (unwieghted mulie on snelled hooks/gangs or just a dead bait also unweighted) might be a stray demersal swimming along or a sambo. Also if you get a herring or the likes chuck it out live.

You could also try drifting the flats for squid, very often produces and can be great fun.

Also you could try get in close to some of the reefs not far from shore such as Whitford Rock or Wanneroo Reef and try for tailor or chuck lightly weighted small baits right in close to the reef. Ive had plenty great sessions like this, even better if you can anchor 5m away from the reef (the back of the reef obviously, protected from swell and more often than not the wind is blowing you away from the danger zone), can get good tarwhine and also a few skippy. Be prepared to encounter Happy Moments (look them up) - fight super hard but don't touch them.

Chucking small 7-10g metal slices around these reefs should also produce herring.

Good luck mate, and remember to burley up, its worth its weight in gold around that area when on anchor.

 Are you in a Finn Spindrift?

 Ok mate.

I've got a Finn Spindrift with a 6hp 2 stroke and it's a great little dinghy but there are limitations. A picture tells a thousand words and this is me and my bro on mine on the Coodanup flats. Pay particular attention to how close we are to the water level. Even a decent wind chop is going to come over the side.

I've taken it out into the Sound and once out of Freo heads to South Beach but mainly stuck to the Peel inlet and the river. If you are keen to head out of Hillarys I'd say you have the right idea to head north of the marina coz if you go south you will almost certainly be swamped by those cocksmokers in huge boats that don't care how close to you they drive at speed.

I'd also suggest you don't head out in anything more than 5 knots and 1.5m swell as it can still get quite choppy inside the reef around Little Island. I once had the wake of a boat come over the front of the dinghy just heading out of the Serpentine River so it isn't going to take much to get swamped. When a boat passes you cut in 90 degrees over their chop and sit in their wake. My Wife and I got picked up and slightly broached by a boat going passed us only travelling 8 knots going with the wake. They are quite a wet ride in chop too and we went out in 12 knots around Coodanup and my brother got absolutely soaked at the front along with our reels and gear.

With my brother and I with a battery an electric motor we are lucky to push 6 knots so with your mate's motor Little Island is going to be a good 15 min trip. So once the wind starts to change it's time to head in or it's going to be a shit ride home.

If you do get into trouble there'll be about a million boats out this weekend but make sure you take all your safety gear including a bailing bucket.

Spots

There is a lump of shallow reef about 600m NNW of Little Island and I've caught huge flatties, skippy and about 20,000 King Wrasse there. The last time I was there I hovered over a weed patch just NE of the shallow reef and got onto a school of monster herring. There is a patch of sand between that and the main reef where I caught a stonker KGW too. About halfway to Little Island you can drift for squid but it's been a bit quiet lately but should be picking up.

When you first head of of Hillarys you have Wanneroo Reef and I'd be heading to the western side of that and chucking some lures around to try pull some tailer out and get a feel for how the dinghy handles before you head across to Little Island.

 If it's too rough outside you can consider fishing inside the marina itself, still good fish to be had in there and much easier to find decent spots on a boat or yak