We’ve spent winter 2018/19 here, where it was nearly fully booked. The marina is excellent. Staff are friendly and competent. Facilities are well maintained and clean. The harbour offers excellent protection, although due to there being much empty space for more pontoons, the outermost berths can have some fetch in southerly winds. Security is light, but there were no concerns of theft and staff patrolled at night. One folding bike went missing, but it may have just fallen off the pontoon. Unlike Ragusa there are no concerns about silting in the entrance and ample depth throughout.

Fouling is as bad as reported. We have Coppercoat, which faired better than most, but had to dive and remove large nests of tubeworms and other growth from the hull. The propeller and saildrive were coated thick to the point where it was producing almost no thrust. If you’d rather have someone else scrape it off, the marina office can organize a diver for you.

Two boatyards, Oceanica, which have a good reputation but do not generally allow DIY or living aboard on the hard and Martello, which permit anything but have a somewhat haphazard hauling arrangement with no cradles for monohulls and holed one catamaran whilst attempting to haul it on a sled. The work done to repair it was apparently good though!

Two competing general marine engineering guys operate here, Elia (speaks German) and Matthew (speaks English). Both do good work but can be very busy in spring. The Nautilhouse chandlery (Andrea) is good and can do or organize some works too. Couple hardware stores in town and a larger BricoOk at San Giorgio shopping centre, which has timber.

The real highlight is the town, which is not ruined by tourism yet. People are friendly, prices are low and you shop where the locals shop. Wine at the enoteca is €1.80 per litre (bring your own jugs or use their plastic bottles), pizza €4.50, the archeological museum is free and they were genuinely happy to have visitors. It’s definitely not a sterile tourism outpost though. Rubbish is everywhere and there are problems with packs of stray dogs in some areas, but Licata’s rugged charme convinced us despite this.

Great liveaboard community, helped by the marina organizing events and having built a very nice outdoor BBQ area. We had Sunday BBQ and happy hour twice per week at café Letterario. The marina even organized free Italian language classes! There’s a well stocked library/book swap and a multifunction room available for your own events, which last winter included quiz night, line dancing, presentations and more.