Licata: the practical landfall on a coast with very few doors.

Captain Ron shore sheet

Quick verdict

Licata is a staging stop, and a good one. You get a modern marina in Marina di Cala del Sole, an old commercial and fishing port beside it, a castle on the hill above the entrance, and open sandy roads to the east where you can lie to your own anchor for nothing if the weather is behaving. The town is workmanlike rather than picturesque, but it feeds you, provisions you and lets you sleep, and on the south coast of Sicily that is worth more than another postcard.

We arrived at about 18:12 on 15 August after a dawn slip from Ramla l-Hamra on Gozo, roughly sixty-three miles on a course a shade west of north, and sailed the last of it in with the engine off. Hook down in the roads at 37°05.6'N 013°57.0'E, and away again westbound at about 07:12 the following morning. That is the shape of a Licata visit: come in tired, sort the boat, eat, and leave on the next weather window.

Berthing and anchoring at Licata: read first

Approach to Licata from seaward

• Coming up from Malta or Gozo you close a low, pale, unremarkable coastline. The thing that resolves first is the hill above the port with the castle on it, and that is your confirmation you are in the right place rather than the next fishing village along.
• Our track from Gozo passed roughly 25 miles south of Marina di Ragusa and stayed clear of land and the Gela exclusion zones the whole way. Plan the offshore route deliberately; the industrial coast east of Licata is not somewhere to freelance.
• The harbour is a working commercial and fishing port as well as a marina. Expect ship movements and fishing boats coming and going, and keep out of the fairway rather than assuming a yacht has any moral high ground in it.
• Call ahead for a berth in August. Sicilian marinas fill in high season, and Cala del Sole is the obvious refuge for everything moving along this coast.
• If you are anchoring instead, stand on east past the harbour entrance and drop off the Playa beach. Clear of the entrance, clear of the approach, and clear of anyone's night manoeuvring.
• For the official picture of local rules, notices and any restriction in force, the Italian Coast Guard's Guardia Costiera portal carries the ordinances issued by the local Capitaneria. Read those rather than the internet.

Anchoring in the Licata roads

This is honest, easy anchoring in the right weather. The bottom east of the harbour is sand off the beach, the shelf comes up gently, and there is unlimited room to lay proper scope. We anchored in 4.7 metres with 50 metres of chain, a real nine-or-ten-to-one, which is more than the textbook wants and precisely right for a boat with a nine-hour offshore leg in her and a crew who intend to sleep.

Work out your swing radius before you go below rather than after something wakes you. Ours came to about 64 metres including the boat's own length, so the anchor alarm went on at 75 to 80 metres, which is tight enough to be useful and loose enough not to cry wolf every time the boat sheers about in a light breeze.

The catch is the direction the coast faces. This anchorage works because the wind was light and northerly, which is offshore here. Put anything into the southern half of the compass and the swell rolls in over shoaling sand with a beach behind you. On the night we lay there the following days' forecast already had Licata gusting the mid-thirties from the west-north-west and then swinging east-south-east in the twenties, which is onshore on a south-facing coast. That is the whole argument for a breakwater in one sentence.

Get ashore

Licata is a proper Sicilian town rather than a resort, which means the shopping is real, the food is good, and nobody is trying very hard to charm you. The marina puts you within a short walk of the Lungomare, the seafront promenade that is where the town actually goes in the evening once the day's heat has given up.

From there the old town climbs away from the water. Piazza Duomo is the centre of it, San Giovanni al Sepolcro is worth the detour, and there is a set of Roman columns in among the streets that most visitors walk straight past. Above the port, the castle on its hill gives you the whole harbour, the roads, and the coast running away west into the haze.

For a day off rather than an errand run, the beaches west of the town are the move: Cala Paradiso and Mollarella are the two names to know, and they are a taxi ride rather than a hike. Provisioning, chandlery-adjacent hardware and the usual fuel and gas errands are all straightforward here, which is not something you can say about every stop on this coast.

Best things to do

• Walk the Lungomare at dusk. After an offshore day it is exactly the right amount of ambition, and it puts you where the restaurants are.
• Climb to the castle above the port. Best view of your own boat, the breakwater, and the coast you are about to sail along.
• Piazza Duomo and the old town. The centre of Licata, and the streets around it hold more than the guidebooks suggest, including the Roman columns and San Giovanni al Sepolcro.
• Eat fish. This is a working fishing port. Order accordingly and stop trying to be clever about it.
• Cala Paradiso and Mollarella. The rest-day beaches west of town, and the reason to stay a second night if the weather is giving you one for free.
• Sort the boat. Water, diesel, laundry, and the jobs you promised yourself offshore. The next real harbour west is a long day away.

Crew missions

Captain Ron bottom line

Nobody sails to Licata for Licata. You sail to Licata because the next hole in the wall is twenty-odd miles further on, the coast between them will not shelter you from anything, and Scirocco does not negotiate. Take the harbour when it is offered, lie in the roads when the wind is honestly offshore, keep the marina four hundred metres away in your back pocket, and go west on the settled morning rather than the brave one. We were away at seven the next day, and that was the right call too.