It was well after midnight when they neared their destination. Rather than risk the treacherous passage in the dark, they anchored off the coast of Italy, within sight of a Calabrian village called Melito di Porto Salvo. When the day dawned, Maddock took the helm and at a considerably more sedate eight knots, steered the yacht into the body of water that separated the Italian mainland from the island of Sicily.
At Melito di Porto Salvo, the distance between the two land masses was about twenty miles. An hour later, about ten miles north, that distance was halved. Ten more miles brought them within sight of Messina, the Sicilian port city for which the strait—now just three miles wide—was named. Directly ahead, the passage continued to narrow like the end of a funnel, hooking slightly to t
