Top 10 Marinas in Israel
Israel's Mediterranean seaboard runs just 190 kilometres or so from Rosh HaNikra's white grottoes on the Lebanese border down to the Gaza line, yet it carries one of the densest concentrations of leisure berths in the eastern Mediterranean. The sea breeze here is a metronome — a westerly that fills in nearly every afternoon at 10 to 15 knots from spring to autumn — and it has bred a fierce club racing culture: on Friday afternoons, when the working week ends, the water off Herzliya and Tel Aviv whitens with sails. Here is where the country keeps its boats.
Herzliya Marina: the country's flagship
Fifteen kilometres north of Tel Aviv, Herzliya Marina is Israel's largest, with roughly 800 berths for yachts up to about 35 metres, wrapped by a shopping arena, hotels and the high-tech offices of the Herzliya Pituach district. This is the natural first port of call for visiting yachts: customs and immigration can clear you here, the travel lift and yard services are the best in the country, and the adjacent beaches run for kilometres. The marina is home to several sailing schools and the bulk of Israel's cruising fleet, and its Friday club races are the busiest start lines on the coast.
Tel Aviv Marina: city berths under the towers
The Tel Aviv Marina at Atarim Square is small — around 320 berths, many occupied by club boats — but its position is unbeatable: dead centre on the city's beachfront, with the Gordon pool beside it and the whole tayelet promenade at your bow. The marina is the historic home of Israeli Olympic sailing; the Yamit and Hapoel clubs here trained the 470 and windsurfing medallists who put the country on the Olympic water. Visitor space is tight, so call ahead, and mind the shallow approach in a strong westerly swell.
Jaffa and the fishermen's harbour
Four kilometres south, Jaffa Port claims some 4,000 years of documented seafaring — Jonah supposedly sailed from here, and Ottoman-era stone warehouses now hold galleries and fish restaurants. The working part remains Namal HaDayagim, the fishermen's harbour, where small trawlers and lampara boats land their catch beside moored daysailers. Depths are modest and surge can be lively, but as an evening stop with St Peter's church floodlit above the breakwater, nothing on this coast matches it.
Ashdod: the Blue Marina
Ashdod, Israel's biggest cargo port, hides a friendly 550-berth marina — locally the Blue Marina — north of the commercial moles. It is the home base of a strong dinghy and keelboat scene serving the southern metropolitan sprawl, with a sailing centre that has produced national champions in the Laser and 420 classes. For cruisers it is a practical, inexpensive stop between Tel Aviv and Ashkelon, with big-city provisioning ten minutes away.
Ashkelon: the southern gateway
Ashkelon Marina, opened in 1995, holds around 600 berths behind twin breakwaters at the foot of a national park where Canaanite ramparts and Roman columns tumble out of the sandstone cliff. It is the first or last Israeli harbour for boats running the Egypt–Cyprus–Levant routes, and its long pontoons host an international liveaboard community wintering in the reliable sunshine — the city counts over 300 sunny days a year. The club here races year-round, and berthing rates are the gentlest on the coast.
Haifa, Shavit and the Kishon
Israel's northern hub is Haifa Bay, where the Carmel ridge drops 500 metres straight to the water. Leisure boating concentrates at the Shavit marine sports centre and the adjacent Kishon harbour complex, home to fishing boats, sea scouts, and the deepest keel services north of Herzliya. The reward for stopping is the city itself: the golden dome and terraced gardens of the Baháʼí World Centre stack up the mountainside directly above the port. Twenty kilometres north, the crusader harbour of Akko (Acre) — continuously used since Phoenician times — takes shallow-draft visitors beside its fishing fleet, under walls that repelled Napoleon in 1799.
Eilat: the Red Sea outpost
Israel's tenth berth lies on another sea entirely. Eilat, at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, runs a compact marina and lagoon system beside the hotel strip, with year-round water warm enough to swim and the Coral Beach Nature Reserve — the northernmost tropical reef on earth — a short sail down toward the Egyptian border at Taba. Northerly valley winds make for spirited afternoon sailing, and Jordan's Aqaba and the rose-rock mountains of Sinai frame every tack. There is no inland waterway connection; boats arrive by truck or via the Suez Canal.
The inland curiosity: sailing below sea level
One more oddity completes the picture: the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) sits about 210 metres below sea level, making its small fleet of club dinghies, kayaks and wooden passenger boats arguably the lowest-altitude sailing scene in the world. Marinas in the formal sense are absent, but slipways at Tiberias and Ein Gev launch everything from Optimists to pilgrim boats retracing first-century crossings.
Practicalities: arrival, security and seasons
Approaching Israel by sea is safe but procedural: call on VHF channel 16 well offshore — the navy typically establishes contact 20 to 40 miles out — and answer patiently; entry is smoothest at Herzliya, Haifa or Ashkelon. The season never really closes: summers are hot and settled with the afternoon westerly, winters bring short, sharp southwesterly gales between sunny weeks. There are effectively no tides to plan around, just a few dozen centimetres of range. Hebrew, English and a sailing vocabulary borrowed from everywhere get you understood in every harbour office.
Explore on the map
From a 4,000-year-old stone basin at Jaffa to a coral lagoon at Eilat, Israel packs ten very different harbours into two seas. Open the interactive map to see each marina and anchorage plotted along the coast, then zoom into Israel on the map and string together your own Levantine passage plan.