Captain Ron shore sheet
Quick verdict
Porto di Sciacca is a third-class working harbour on the south-west corner of Sicily, roughly 37 NM west of Porto Empedocle, at about 37°30.0'N 013°04.5'E. It is not a glossy marina and it is not pretending to be. It is a fishing port with about 600 berths spread across three yacht pontoons, a fuel dock you pass on the way in, and a beautiful old town sitting on a terrace 60-70 m above your masthead.
We came here for one reason: Sciacca shelters properly from the north-west, and Tuesday is NW 16 kt gusting 30-32 with the sea outside building past 1.2 m. The land is to the north, so the wind that is making a mess of the open coast blows off the top of the town and leaves us in flat water. That is the whole argument for this stop, and it is a good one.
The flip side, which you must hold in your head: Sciacca is exposed to the south-west (Libeccio) and the south-east (Scirocco). Put a strong southerly or westerly on this entrance and it becomes an unpleasant, rolly, occasionally dangerous place to be. Right port, right weather. Wrong weather, go somewhere else.
Sciacca marina VHF and berthing: read first
Floating pontoon at the harbour entrance, on the LEFT immediately past the fuel dock. Confirmed direct with the club on 16 August 2026. Office 09:00-20:00.
Older pilot data lists Corallo on a CB set on channel 14. The club itself works VHF 13. Call at 3-5 NM. Lega Navale Sciacca is VHF 12; Circomare on 16.
Quoted mid-August 2026 for a 14.05 m x 4.50 m yacht, cash or POS. Lines and potable water laid on. Fuel dock on the Molo di Ponente, 08:00-20:00.
Approach to Porto di Sciacca
Coming from Licata and the east you close the coast with Capo San Marco ahead — white group flash (3) every 15 s, 18 M range, and comfortably the best distant mark on this stretch.
- Outer east breakwater head: green occulting 6 s, 8 M. That is your primary approach mark.
- West breakwater: red occulting 6 s, 8 M, set roughly 30 m back from the head.
- Inner east breakwater: green flashing 4 s / 5 s, 2 M — harbour use only, not an approach light.
- Pilot books give an approach line on the outer green light bearing 059°, i.e. entering on a north-easterly heading. Verify against the plotter and the paper chart before committing. The outer breakwater is a four-armed structure and the entrance genuinely is not obvious from seaward.
Hazards on the way in
- La Secca. Rocky shoal, 5.5 m least depth, about 3 M offshore and 5 M south-east of the entrance — directly on the line from Licata. No threat to a 1.6 m draft in flat water, but it breaks in swell. Give it room rather than clever it.
- Anchoring is prohibited in the charted area off Sciacca. Do not plan on a night on the hook outside the harbour here.
- Summer fog banks, May to September, particularly in a Scirocco. Do not loiter near the entrance in poor visibility with a fishing fleet moving.
- Fishing fleet, again, because it is the one that will actually bite you. If several yachts are waiting, stand off about 1000 m from the east breakwater head and be patient.
Arrival plan
- Ring Circolo Nautico il Corallo a couple of hours out: +39 0925 442391 or mobile +39 338 194 4304. An email is a confirmation; a phone call is a berth.
- Call the club on VHF 13 at 3-5 NM for entry instructions and the exact finger.
- Slow to 5 kt on the approach, 3 kt inside. Watch for outbound and inbound trawlers between 13:00 and 18:00.
- Fuel and water on the way in if you need them — the distributore on the Molo di Ponente sits right beside our pontoon and runs 08:00-20:00.
- Berth on the floating pontoon on the LEFT immediately after the fuel dock. Lines and fresh water are provided.
- Charge the bank before you tie up. There is no guaranteed shore power for the next three days.
Port services
For a working harbour, Sciacca is well found. Eight water standpipes around the basin. Three slipways, a ramp, one fixed crane and two mobile cranes. Six mechanical workshops inside the port, which is more than most tourist marinas manage — useful if, say, your speed-through-water paddlewheel is reading 0.0 kt while you make six over the ground and needs something more than a swim and a swear. Two 50 m³ ice plants serve the fleet and will sell to you.
What you will not find is a supermarket in the port. The nearest proper shops are 1-2 km away, up in the town or out on the commercial strip at its edge. Provision before you arrive or accept the walk.
Other operators, for reference: Lega Navale Italiana Sciacca has roughly 300 berths, works VHF 12, tel +39 0925 902766. The Guardia Costiera / Circomare Sciacca is on VHF 16, tel +39 0925 22219.
Get ashore
The old centre is up a steep flight of steps from the port — call it 300-500 m of walking and 50-80 m of climbing — and it delivers you into Piazza Angelo Scandaliato, a terrace café square with the entire harbour laid out below it. It is the best thing in Sciacca and it costs nothing. Have your coffee there and let someone else worry about the fenders.
One correction, and it matters because bad advice sends people up a hill for nothing. The main Sciacca thermal baths have been closed since 6 March 2015. The Nuove Terme, the Grand Hotel delle Terme, the Antiche Terme, the Molinelli pools — all shut, and the company's own site still carries the line about all thermal and hotel activity being suspended. There is periodic political noise about reopening; there is nothing you can turn up and use. Do not send your crew there.
Best things to do
- Ceramics. This is what Sciacca is genuinely famous for — hand-painted majolica, workshops scattered through the old town, and a decorated staircase that is worth the walk after dark when it is lit.
- Il Castello Incantato. Filippo Bentivegna's outsider-art park of thousands of carved stone heads, just outside town at the foot of Monte Kronio. Roughly 09:30-13:30 and 15:30-20:00, about €5, tel 320 844 6278. Genuinely strange and genuinely good.
- Stufe di San Calogero, Monte Kronio. The natural vapour caves above the town, 37-39 °C at 100% humidity — a separate thing entirely from the closed baths complex. Free guided visits in small groups, about fifteen minutes, Friday to Sunday evenings. Ring 334 322 0888 before you climb; hours drift and Tuesday is out.
- Museums, which open late in summer, roughly 17:00-20:30: Casa-Museo Scaglione, Museo del Mare, Galleria Fazello, and the Museo del Carnevale — the Carnevale di Sciacca is one of Italy's recognised historic carnivals, papier-mâché floats and satirical scripts, and the town takes it very seriously. Infopoint at Piazza Libertà 2.
- Basilica Maria SS. del Soccorso and the Norman and Chiaramonte layers stacked up around the old centre.
- Mercato Ittico, Via Giuseppe Licata on the Banchina San Paolo, a few minutes from the pontoon. A real working fish market; the dawn auction is the sight. Closed Sunday, and the fleet does not land on a Sunday either.
Eating and drinking
The fish lands fifty metres from the pontoon, so eat fish. The specific thing to order is gambero rosso — the red prawn, served raw — which is what this coast is actually famous for. People arrive wanting lobster: aragosta is gettable here but it is mostly trucked in from Sardinia or the Egadi, it is not what the local trawlers land, and in mid-August you will pay handsomely for the privilege. The red prawn is fresher, cheaper and better. Take the hint the harbour is giving you.
- Hostaria del Vicolo — the serious one. Slow Food, family-run, up in the old town, built its reputation on raw red prawns. Book ahead; it turns walk-ins away in August.
- La Lampara for harbour views and a smarter dinner; Trattoria Mokarta, Vecchia Conza and Antica Osteria della Vittoria for honest family trattoria prices and the daily catch.
- Porto San Paolo on the waterfront, for squid-ink arancini.
- Murphy's Pub, Piazza Inveges 4 — the Sicilian Irish pub, and a good one for a town of 40,000. Tel 0925 440562, Instagram @murphys_sciacca. Closed Mondays, so Sunday and Tuesday are your nights. Guinness in Sicily in August is a lottery on line cleaning; set expectations accordingly.
- For cocktails and wine, the evening splits between the lungomare at port level and the upper town around Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Venti Nodi is the best-regarded cocktail bar; La Skalunata on Piazza Matteotti does mixology with live music; Mastro Malto pours craft beer. Names and hours drift in Sicily — walk the Corso and pick by the noise.
Crew missions
Captain Ron bottom line
Sciacca is a working harbour that happens to have a gorgeous town bolted to the cliff above it, and it is exactly the right place to sit out a north-westerly. Call Corallo on VHF 13, not the CB channel 14 the old books insist on. Time your entry around the fleet coming home. Ask which finger before you commit the keel. And charge everything before you tie up, because the shore power here is a hope rather than a promise.
Three nights is about the correct dose of Sciacca, and one of ours is a gale. Beaches in the day, upper town at night, red prawns raw. Reef the optimism; not the dinner plan.