Secca di Fonza (Corallina)

Secca di Fonza sits off the south coast of Elba at the eastern mouth of the Gulf of Marina di Campo, with the island bulk and the Fonza and Morcone headlands to the north and west shielding it from the Mistral/Tramontana (NW-N) and from westerly Libeccio chop close inshore. There is no true ocean swell in this Tyrrhenian setting — seas are wind-driven over local fetch — and the exposed window is the open sea to the south, so the S-SSW-SSE sector is wide open and a sustained Libeccio (SW) or Scirocco (SE) blow builds the surface and reinforces the site's notorious currents. Easterly and westerly winds are largely blocked by the flanking headlands, so the site is at its calmest under northerly weather and gets called off mainly when the wind sits in the southern half of the compass.