Sfaktiría

Area of island: 5 sq. km/2 sq. mi

Altitude: 137m/449ft

Sfaktiría, the ancient Sphagia, is a cliff-fringed island lying off the southwestern Peloponnese, separated from it by the narrow Sikiá Channel, which is only 200m/220yd wide. The island, 4.6km/2.75mi long and between 500m/550yd and 1,000m/1,100yd across, forms a protective barrier on the west side of Navarino Bay (see Pylos), in which on October 20th 1827 a Turkish fleet of 82 warships suffered an annihilating defeat at the hands of a numerically inferior British, French and Russian fleet. The sea bed is still littered with wrecks.