La Montagna (The Mountain of Scilla)

La Montagna sits at the foot of the Scilla castle rock on the Tyrrhenian mouth of the Strait of Messina, with the promontory, Marina Grande beach and town wrapping the site from the south through east and the Calabrian coast rising to the north-east, so the whole E-SE-S landward sector is well sheltered. The open window is the Tyrrhenian approach and the strait channel to the north-west, west and south-west: the site faces roughly WNW toward deep water, exposing it to Tyrrhenian N-NW wind-sea entering the strait mouth and to Libeccio (SW) blowing up the channel from the Messina side, with Sicily 6-8 km across the strait limiting true fetch from due west. There is no ocean swell here — it is a wind-sea and channel-effect environment — but the far greater consideration is not surface waves at all: the site is governed by the strait's strong reversing tidal currents, which dictate that it can only be dived at slack water.