BOAT-COMPARATOR Guide

Malta or Sicily: which base to pick for a boat rental in the central Mediterranean?

The Blue Lagoon at Comino, UNESCO-listed Valletta, the Aeolian or Egadi islands: how to choose between Malta and Sicily for a central Mediterranean boat rental.

Roughly a hundred kilometres apart, Malta and Sicily offer two very different scales of sailing in the central Mediterranean — a small archipelago you can cover in an unhurried week, and a large island opening onto two separate archipelagos.

Malta, compact and English-speaking

Around the capital Valletta, UNESCO-listed and covered in our dedicated guide, the Maltese archipelago is quick to cover: the turquoise Blue Lagoon at Comino, between Malta and Gozo, is barely an hour's sail away, as are the limestone cliffs of Dingli and Mgarr bay. English, an official language alongside Maltese, makes things easier for a French-speaking crew, a real plus for a first taste of sailing abroad.

Sicily, bigger and greener

Much larger, Sicily opens onto two archipelagos popular with sailors: the Aeolian Islands to the north, with the active volcano of Stromboli visible from afar at night, and the Egadi Islands to the west, near Trapani, with clearer water still. The choice plays out more over a full week of sailing than a single day, and the landscape, greener and more mountainous than Malta's, shifts noticeably from one coast to the next.

Something the two share beneath the surface

The waters of both destinations host Posidonia oceanica meadows, the Mediterranean's endemic seagrass, which protects sandy seabeds and serves as a nursery for many fish species. A 2015 study published in Marine Pollution Bulletin by Campagne and co-authors put a figure on the economic value of the services these meadows provide, well above that of an equivalent area of coral reef (see the study on Google Scholar) — good reason to anchor on bare sand rather than on the dark patches of seagrass, as our guide to anchoring and Posidonia explains.

Comparing the fleets

Boat-Comparator shows the boats actually available in Valletta and in Palermo for your dates, so you can pick the right base for the archipelago you're after.

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