The couple, a middle-aged man and woman, undertook their escapade amid Italy’s strict nationwide lockdown, flouting travel restrictions in place across the nation three months ago, according to Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
The report, which was published on Tuesday, reveals that the hapless pair travelled from Veneto to the Sicilian port of Termini Imerese, where they sold their car and bought a boat.
They then set sail for their desired destination, but ended up instead on the island of Ustica, 60 kilometres to the north-west of Palermo, and not remotely near Lampedusa, which is located to the far south of Sicily, off the coast of Tunisia.
The disorientated duo docked at Ustica “tired, thirsty, and risking shipwreck”, according to local media.
“The funny thing is that they used a compass, an instrument that works on the basis of terrestrial magnetism, a principle that they, as flat-Earthers, should reject,” Salvatore Zichici, a doctor at the maritime department of the ministry of health, told Italian newspaper La Stampa.
After disembarking in Ustica, the couple were escorted to the Sicilian capital of Palermo, where they were forced to quarantine on board their boat for 15 days.
However, the pair attempted to escape by sea, which also did not go according to plan; the two were picked up by the harbour master a short distance from the coast, despite having been at sea for three hours.
Escorted back again to the port, the pair then made another attempt to escape, this time ending up in the home of a man who claimed falsely to have coronavirus, before they eventually returned home to Veneto by land.
