Strait of Messina

The Strait of Messina is crossed by swimming in its northern part, where Sicily and Calabria are closest: you start from Torre Faro, on the tip of Capo Peloro, and arrive on the beach of Cannitello, on the Calabrian coast. The association that organizes the crossings and maintains the official record indicates a distance between 3.5 and 4 km (2.2 and 2.5 mi), which changes with the route and the conditions of the day. The double crossing, there and back in the same swim, measures 6.7 km (4.2 mi).

The route is also fixed by law. The 2019 ordinance of the Messina Port Authority authorizes only one stretch: from the beach in front of the Torre Faro pylon to the beach of Cannitello in front of the Boccaccio restaurant, and vice versa. Different departures or arrivals, when the tide makes them necessary, must be agreed upon with the Strait's traffic control center.

Scendente and montante

In the Strait, the tide does not just raise and lower the sea level: it produces currents that change direction approximately every six hours. The current that flows from north to south, from the Tyrrhenian to the Ionian, is called scendente (descending); the opposite one, from south to north, is montante (ascending). On the two shores, they speak of «rema scendente» and «rema montante», and the brief pause between one and the other is called stanca (slack water). On the strongest days, the current reaches about 6 knots.

The strength of the currents follows the moon. With the full moon and the new moon, the tides are wider and the currents more energetic, and the stanca can be reduced to a few minutes; at the first and last quarter, the currents are weaker and the stanca is longer and easier to recognize. For this reason, the traditional choice falls on the days of the moon's quarter, those in which the intensity of the current is minimal.

Those steering the boat can also choose the strong current if the swimmer is fast enough. In September 2010, close to the new moon, Giovanni Arena had 16-year-old Rolando Candiano start from a point several hundred meters north of Capo Peloro, to insert him immediately into the «river» of the scendente and have him swim ahead of the line of maximum intensity. Candiano finished in 32 min 44 s. A year later, two days before the last quarter, Arena tried the same choice himself: at 54 years old, he started further north of the tip, swam almost 3,600 meters (2.2 mi) and touched land between Torre Cavallo and Cannitello in 37 min 8 s.

The currents leave marks on the surface. With the scendente, in front of Capo Peloro, the unevenness of the seabed can form the «scala» (staircase), a drop in the water similar to a waterfall; with the montante, between Ganzirri and Torre Faro, the «taglio» (cut) appears, a line where the flow accelerates. The montante that bounces off Capo Peloro ripples the sea in the first few meters after the start, and brings colder and clearer water from the Ionian: the most experienced swimmers notice its arrival precisely from this.

The wind

The northern mouth of the Strait, between Capo Peloro and Cannitello, is the narrowest point of the channel, and the wind accelerates there. The sirocco and the ostro, which enter from the south, reach their highest speeds precisely between Punta Faro and Villa San Giovanni, where even on ordinary sirocco days the gusts often reach 100-120 km/h (62-75 mph). The wind forms short, steep waves that add to the tidal currents. In 1987, the sirocco forced the Scilla e Cariddi race to move to an alternative route at Mortelle.

When to swim

The ordinance allows only one crossing per day, during the day, with a maximum of thirty swimmers. Applications must be submitted to the Port Authority by February, and the calendar of available days is published in December of the previous year. In the 2026 calendar, organized crossings run from June 4 to October 6. In the official record, according to our count, July is the month with the most recorded crossings, followed by August and September.

The Strait is also a very busy shipping lane. The person in charge of the crossing must contact the Messina traffic control center at least thirty minutes before departure and remain on radio watch the entire time; every boat raises the «O» flag, man overboard. If a passing ship becomes a danger, the swimmer gets on the boat and restarts when the ship has moved at least 500 meters (0.3 mi) away.

Who accompanies the crossings

Today's crossings are organized by StrettoSwim, the service managed by the Baia di Grotta association of Messina. Since 2008, they have been led together by Giovanni Arena and Nino Fazio, who are also swimmers themselves: Fazio handles relations with the athletes, authorizations, and group coordination; Arena is the person in charge at sea, chooses the route, and leads the crossing. Arena, from Torre Faro, is a professional helmsman and fisherman. Before departure, he goes into the middle of the Strait to read the direction and strength of the current and decides the exact moment to enter the water.

The swimmers are divided into trios of similar pace, each followed by a motorboat with a lifeguard^15. No one can move away from their boat, and each trio swims at the speed of the slowest member. On board, there is a doctor and the timekeepers of the Italian Timekeepers Federation; an ambulance waits on the Sicilian shore and one on the Calabrian one^1. A medical certificate for competitive activity is required, and the minimum age is 14 years old. There are no rankings: the crossing is considered finished when you touch the Calabrian shore, then you return to Sicily by boat.

The official record

Baiadigrotta.it, founded by Nino Fazio in 2004, publishes the official record of crossings from 1930 to today^13. Crossings without wetsuits and without fins, without contact with boats or other people, and with at least one official timekeeper present are included; every request for inclusion must carry the report from the Italian Timekeepers Federation. The record is divided into single, double, other routes, race, pair, or group crossings, and also collects the long crossings between the Aeolian Islands and Sicily. It is the source of the rankings on this page.