Original subtitles

Many archaeologists could make an entire career out of finding

one shipwreck, and yet you guys have found, what, like 50?

58 to be precise.

I've never seen such a collection of shipwrecks

in one place.

So the million dollar question is, why is a place that should

be safe consuming ships?

[Josh speaking over radio]

Wind just picked way up. From five miles an hour to 20.

Just, I think there are other forces at work here.

So you're talking, what, gods and monsters here?

Out there, there is something very real.

So you think there could be more wrecks out there?

No question.

OK, dye pack is away.

Whoo! Look at that.

Are you ready for the fun part?

Driving through the straits.

[Manos] Through the Cape of Death.

Cape of Death?

[Josh speaking over radio]

[Josh] We are in a vortex.

The anemometer is literally spinning in circles.

Everywhere else, it's a paradise.

-Whoo! -Here, it's hell!

Hang on! Whoa!

[eerie, suspenseful music playing]

This is the Temple of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea,

and protector of sailors.

And beyond these weathered columns are the vast waters

of the Mediterranean.

[epic music playing]

[Josh] For more than 2,500 years, this sanctuary has stood

south of Athens at the last point of land

that sailors glimpsed before departing

on perilous voyages across the Aegean Sea.

But it seems that no amount of offerings or sacrifices

made here fully appeased Poseidon's wrath, as evidenced

by the recent discovery of a stretch of water

as deadly as the Bermuda Triangle.

Astonishingly, the remains of more than 50 shipwrecks

have been found surrounding the tiny Greek islands of Fourni.

It may be the largest concentration of ancient wrecks

found anywhere on the planet, with vessels that span

thousands of years.

Their crews and cargo mysteriously dragged

to the bottom of the Mediterranean.

And now archaeologists want to know how they ended up there.

The team that uncovered this nautical graveyard thinks

that the answer to the mystery could lie in the cargo

of a newly discovered wreck more than 100 feet below the surface.

Can state of the art technology

provide a logical explanation,

or could the culprit be right out of Greek mythology?

To find out, I'm embarking on an epic odyssey

to the treacherous shores

of Greece's island of shipwrecks.

[Josh] The past is all around us.

Oh, my god!

It goes on forever!

[Josh] A world of mystery...

Come on! Look at that!

...danger...

Hang on!

...and adventure.

It's just straight down!

I gotta get a new job.

[Josh] I travel to the far corners of the Earth

to uncover where legends end...

We got it!

Yes!

...and history begins.

Whoo-hoo! Here we go!

I'm Josh Gates, and this is "Expedition Unknown."

[upbeat Greek music playing]

Welcome to Athens, the oldest capital city

in Europe and the beating heart of ancient Greece

during its golden age.

That's when the Greeks came up with some pretty important

stuff we still enjoy today.

The Olympics,

theater,

formal geometry,

Big Fat Weddings,

overly thick yogurt,

philosophy,

an alphabet with vowels,

John Stamos,

not to mention a little old thing called democracy.

So next 4th of July, maybe put down the hot dog and pick up

a gyro to celebrate the Greek gift of Western civilization.

Opa!

So what made Athens so influential and powerful?

Location, location, location.

It's the southernmost major city on the European continent,

with access to sea routes that connect to Western Europe,

North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Balkans.

This is the Port of Piraeus.

You know, in the ancient world,

Greece was a shipping powerhouse,

and they still are.

Despite being a relatively small country, with a population

that's roughly the size of North Carolina,

Greek-owned companies control a staggering 20%

of the world's merchant fleet.

Today, we stuff everything into 40-foot steel containers.

But back when the ancient Greeks ruled the shipping lanes

on the Mediterranean, their most valuable goods --

wine, oil, exotic spices, even preserved fish --

were transported in ceramic vessels called "amphorae."

Along with commercial shipping, modern Piraeus is also

a travel hub for cruise ships and ferries

that travel between Greece's more than 200 inhabited islands.

And this is where my adventure begins.

You see, a few months ago, I received this mysterious

invitation to a Greek wedding from an old girlfriend,

and I gotta say, I'm thinking I'm --

[producer] We are not doing "Mamma Mia!"

Right, sorry, no "Mamma Mia!"

Scary shipwreck island.

Can we at least afford some knockoff ABBA music?

[upbeat Europop-style music playing]

There it is.

Life is short, the world is wide,

and I have a boat to catch.

To reach Greece's answer to the Bermuda Triangle,

I board this massive ferry capable of carrying 1,800

passengers, over 400 vehicles, and one intrigued adventurer.

Our voyage to the shipwreck island of Fourni isn't exactly

a quick commute.

We'll be sailing for nearly 10 hours as we navigate through

some of the nearly 200 islands that make up the Cyclades

and steam through legendary waters.

Fourni, with barely 1,000 residents, is a tiny

cluster of islands that sit near the eastern edge

of the Aegean Sea.

Few tourists make it there, as most hop off on better known

and more mythic islands.

Our ferry will stop first at Syros,

the home of the messenger god Hermes,

then to Mykonos,

where Hercules himself defeated a race of giants,

and on to Ikaria,

where the doomed flyboy Icarus flew too close to the sun

and plummeted to earth.

These tales are woven into the very fabric of Greece,

but in a split second,

the only deity I'm worried about is Poseidon.

Well, the forecast called for good weather,

but in the last 10 minutes or so,

these winds have just picked up out of nowhere,

are probably blowing 40 miles an hour or more.

And as you can see, the sea is just churning.

So, I don't know if the gods are angry, but I think

we're gonna have rough waters ahead.

-As the storm racks our ferry... -[waves crashing]

...day turns to night,

and night brings a howling gale.

-[wind crackles] -[waves crashing]

[Josh speaking]

The sea churns. The wind screams.

And I imagine riding this out in an ancient wooden vessel,

a fraction of the size of this ferry.

Just before I decide to relocate to a lifeboat,

though, the tempest suddenly and mysteriously stops.

The wind has died down, the seas are calm,

kind of an eerie welcome to the island.

In ancient times, ships would vanish without a trace

off the coast of Fourni.

But tonight, the fates have calmed the seas,

and allowed us ashore.

OK, welcome to Fourni.

Under cover of darkness, I find my way to a waiting bed

and a good night's sleep.

In the morning, I awake to, well, paradise.

This is Fourni.

Sleepy, sun-kissed, and awash in Greek hospitality.

Not at all the kind of place that looks

like it violently consumes ships.

So, to learn how this place has suddenly leapt to the forefront

of an ancient mystery, I head to the far side of the island,

where I find a compound of archaeologists hard at work,

and the man directing their efforts,

Dr. George Koutsouflakis.

First of all, many archaeologists could make

an entire career out of finding one shipwreck, and yet you guys

have found, what, like 50?

Well, 58 to be precise.

-[Josh] 58, sorry. -And still counting.

And still counting.

So you think there could be more wrecks out there?

No question.

These are like Bermuda Triangle numbers.

That's a huge amount of wrecks in one place.

It's the largest concentration of shipwrecks

in the Mediterranean.

It's a good 20% of the shipwrecks

ever recorded in Greece.

-20% of all wrecks in Greece are here? -Yeah.

So, did people know there were wrecks here?

[George] Eh, not really -- this place was completely

archaeologically uncharted.

And historically, this was not considered an important place?

No, they're hardly ever mentioned [indistinct] by ancient writers.

-No major ports here? -No major ports here.

Nothing really of an historical importance

is recorded to have happened here.

[Josh] George got involved in this mystery thanks to chance,

or maybe fate.

A few years ago, while sitting in his office in Athens,

his phone rang.

On the other end of the line, there is this guy from Fourni

claiming that he dove around the islands and collected

information from fishermen, and he made up a map with spots

in several sites that are indicative of the presence

of shipwrecks.

[Josh] The local fishermen reported they were getting their nets

caught on sunken hazards,

and those reports changed George's life.

And using this guy's map and his information,

you found how many shipwrecks?

22 shipwrecks in just 11 days.

You found 22 wrecks in 11 days?

Yeah.

So the million dollar question is, why are they there?

Let's go out, and I'll show you.

-Out on the sea? -[George] Yeah.

-Is it safe out there? -Maybe.

[Josh chuckles]

Perfect.

The answer to this riddle must lie among the shipwrecks

George has discovered, so that's where we're going next.

We walk out to a rib boat that will bring us

to one of his research vessels.

And there, I meet a member of his team who first put

this place on the map, literally.

-Hello, Manos. -Hello, guys -- Welcome.

Let me introduce you to Manos Mitikas.

He's the local guy.

He's the one on the other end of the line, 2015.

-He's the guy who called you. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So are you still adding to this map?

Continuously, we still hear stories from fishermen.

[Josh] Wow, amazing.

OK, so you've got a map full of wrecks.

-You wanna take me to one? -Of course.

-Let's go. -Let's go.

Come on.

[adventurous music playing]

With Manos at the helm, we speed around the coast

of Fourni to hover over one of the wrecks

that's recently been discovered.

To figure out how it ended up here, we quickly get to work,

suit up, and splash in.

[water splashes]

[bubbles gurgling]

[George speaking over radio]

[Josh speaking over radio]

[Josh] Our mission is to try to identify what sank this ship.

But at this depth, we only have minutes to investigate

before risking dangerous decompression sickness,

also known as "the bends."

[George and Josh speaking over radio]

[dramatic music playing]

[Josh and George speaking over radio]

[Josh] Off the coast of the Greek islands of Fourni, I'm exploring

a shipwreck discovered by Dr. George Koutsouflakis.

Ancient Greece was filled with myths of gods and monsters,

luring sailors to their doom.

And now, 58 wrecks have been discovered

around this tiny island,

and archaeologists want to know who

or what took them down.

[Josh speaking over radio]

[George over radio]

[Josh] The complete lack of cargo is a compelling clue

that this ship was pillaged.

Pirates were once a very real threat in the Mediterranean.

[George and Josh speaking over radio]

[adventurous music playing]

[Josh] We carefully ascend, and once we're back on board,

I'm eager to explore the idea that piracy

may account for the nautical graveyard around Fourni.

And it turns out, I'm in the company of someone

who has piracy in his blood.

Manos? Wait a minute, descended from pirates?

Yes, my great great grandfather was a famous pirate

of this area. They executed him in 1863.

You're not taking up the family business?

-Eh...I hope not. -[Josh] Yeah, I hope not, too.

I didn't know we had a dangerous man on board here.

Yeah, they don't do that stuff anymore.

So, in terms of this wreck, from the piracy, no cargo.

So is this the answer to our mystery?

All these shipwrecks are here because they've been

preyed upon by pirates?

That would be an easy solution to a complicated problem.

But it's not so simple because most of the other wreck we've

found so far are full of cargo. -Full of cargo?

-Do you wanna see? -I would love to see.

-[George] Yeah, let's go. -Let's go.

So, if nearly all the other wrecks here are loaded

with cargo, that means pirates aren't to blame.

Manos pilots the boat around Fourni to a strait

in between two islands.

It's in this channel where the team has located

half of the wrecks found to date.

So this is Fourni here, and this is what,

another island? -[George] Agios Minas, yeah.

Agios Minas. And so, we're what?

We're in the channel between them?

We are in the opening of the channel between them.

We call this area the White Cape.

The White Cape. Got it.

[Josh] This area also has another nickname

because of the concentration of wrecks here.

The Cape of Death.

[epic music playing]

Below the towering cliffs, we arrive at George's other

research vessels with a team of underwater archaeologists

below carefully excavating and cataloging

this graveyard of shipwrecks.

We've had a long enough surface interval after our last dive

for us to safely get back in the water.

So we gear up once again and jump in

to get a firsthand look

at one of the mysterious wrecks below.

[water splashes]

[Josh and George speaking over radio]

[Josh] I'm absolutely stunned by what I see.

Thousands of ceramic containers everywhere where I look,

a treasure trove of ancient history

littering the sea floor.

[George speaking over radio]

[Josh] Amphorae were the Amazon boxes of the ancient world.

Some form of them was used by every culture

on the Mediterranean to ship oil, wine, and precious goods

across the sea.

Their design made them deceptively strong and easy

to pack into a ship's hold, where they could be

stacked tightly for transport.

[Josh and George speaking over radio]

[Josh] These wrecks are so close,

they're practically on top of each other.

Another one is only a short swim away.

[George and Josh speaking over radio]

[Josh] The amphorae offer a ghostly outline of the ships that once

carried them, ships that disintegrated long ago,

leaving only cargo behind as a clue to their fate.

[Josh and George speaking over radio]

[Josh] The wide span of time these wrecks encompass is proof

that whatever took them down was not a fluke event.

Something has been a threat here for millennia.

[Josh and George speaking over radio]

[Josh] Once again, our bottom time is up, so we carefully ascend,

stopping to make sure we avoid decompression sickness.

Once we eventually surface,

I try to make sense of everything I've seen.

First of all, I wanna thank you for showing me what's here.

I've never seen such a collection of shipwrecks

in one place.

Yeah, for the first time, Fourni is now

on the archaeological and historical map.

Absolutely, in a big way.

This is why I'm so confused about these shipwrecks,

because look at the timescale here.

Why are these ships all coming through here?

I thought Fourni had no major harbor.

I thought it was not a major stopping place.

It's never mentioned.

So why are all these ships from all these different

time periods here?

For what we have learned, Fourni itself was never

a final destination. -OK.

It was used as an intermediate stop, as a stepping stone

along major trade routes. -Trade routes.

OK, Josh, this is one of the very few maps

that show Fourni. -Amazing!

[dramatic music playing]

This is a map of the Ottoman period, 16th, 17th century.

[Josh] Look at this. Amazing!

[Josh] I'm looking at a rare map that shows the islands of Fourni

as they appeared more than five centuries ago,

before this became the Bermuda Triangle of Ancient Greece,

with more than 50 shipwrecks scattered on the ocean floor.

And this map may be the key to understanding

how they got there.

Back then, the most direct sea route between mainland Greece

and Asia Minor, what is today Turkey,

cuts fairly close to Fourni.

On this map, we see Islamic ships passing by.

And importantly, they're doing it

by passing directly through, literally through

the islands of Fourni. -Yeah.

This is really something, because even though Fourni

doesn't get mentioned by name very much, we do see it

in relation to a major, major fleet passing through.

[George] Passing through, yeah.

So an obvious thought would be, "Is it just storms?"

It would be easy to blame storms, but Fourni was also

a port of safety. -Uh-huh.

[Josh] The ships on this map aren't just doing a flyby.

Instead, the document reveals something astonishing.

It shows individual ships seeking refuge

in Fourni's many small bays.

In fact, the name Fourni means

"the ovens," a possible reference

to the many sheltered coves around the island.

So, Fourni is actually... is actually a place of safety,

a place of protection. -[George] Yeah.

Wow.

Right.

[Josh] The treacherous waters

around the nearby island of Ikaria,

and by extension, Fourni,

have been infamous for millennia.

Homer himself references them as being particularly

tumultuous, making Fourni an appealing lifeline

to sailors in distress.

So it's not just that Fourni happens to sit at the middle

of these trade routes.

They may have designed these trade routes to pass

right through here. -Yeah.

So why is a place that should be safe consuming ships?

[Josh] That's the million dollar question.

To find the answer,

we reposition our boat beneath the cliffs

and intersect with another member of George's team,

a fellow Explorer's Club member as well as an old family friend.

I believe you know this man here.

Hey! How are you, buddy?

-Hey, Josh -- great to see you. -[Josh] John Stella.

-Great to see you, man. -[John] Great to see you.

-How you been? -I've been great.

John is a dear old family friend who's been palling

around with my dad since the good old days.

-That's correct. -[Josh] Yeah.

And your dad, Lee, had a lot of influence on our early

diving career. -Yep, my dad's a diving legend.

He sure is.

[Josh] My dad, Lee Gates, spent his career criss-crossing

the globe as a deep-water commercial diver.

It's where I get my passion for travel.

John Stella here has been a dive industry professional

for more than 30 years, much needed expertise

as we're above one of the deepest wrecks at the site.

-OK, should we go diving? -Let's go.

-Let's go. -Let's do it, come on.

[Josh] Our plan is to recover artifacts from this wreck,

an autopsy to look for clues as to the ship's identity,

and cause of death.

[water gurgling]

[George and Josh speaking over radio]

[Josh] This is at the outer edge of safe scuba depth,

so we hurry to descend to the wreck

or at least to its cargo, which is all that remains,

so we can quickly get to work exploring its artifacts.

[George speaking over radio]

[dramatic music playing]

[Josh and George speaking over radio]

[Josh] The team here is using powerful suction hoses

called "airlift dredgers."

An engine on the surface gently draws the sand

away from the artifacts,

sends it through a screen to catch small objects,

and relocates the sediment away from the wreck.

Then they use mesh bags to cradle heavy relics before

inflatable lift bags help raise them safely to the surface.

And at this site, there are plenty of relics.

[Josh and George speaking over radio]

[Josh] These ceramic vessels, are like fingerprints

and could identify where this ship sailed from.

[Josh and George speaking over radio]

[Josh] To begin excavating, George offers me the use

of one of the airlifters.

[Josh speaking over radio]

[Josh] Once it's clear, the team needs

to measure and photograph it before it can be raised.

Nearby, another artifact is ready

to head topside for analysis.

[George and Josh speaking over radio]

[Josh] Once we have the amphora safely cradled,

one of George's conservators attaches an inflatable bag,

and then it's away and headed for the topside team,

as I turn the airlifter back to the debris pile.

[Josh and George speaking over radio]

[Josh] These are likely thousands of years old

and therefore extremely delicate.

[Josh and George speaking over radio]

[Josh] With no bottom time left, we carefully return

to the surface, hoping these bowls and the amphora

can unlock the ship's identity.

Oh, wow.

I cannot believe the amount of artifacts down there.

There are amphorae everywhere.

Every time I go down, I'm in awe that I'm visiting

an underwater museum.

[Josh] That's exactly what it is.

It's a time capsule.

And now, can we talk about what's in my hand?

[John] Yeah, go on.

-So these are...? -This is red slipware.

[Josh] Red slipware.

[George] Very common in the 5th century AD.

[Josh] Red slipware is a distinctive kind of ceramic,

manufactured during the Roman era, where red slip,

or liquid clay, is used to surface

the pottery before firing.

The finish on these bowls has endured for 1,500 years

and left me astonished.

Holding plates from the 5th century.

-Sure, why not? Valuable items. -Yeah.

[Josh] But it's the amphora that proved truly eye-opening.

The style of these ceramics comes not

from the Mediterranean, but from the Black Sea,

more than 400 miles away.

So now we have a positive ID here, right?

A ship that sank a long way from home, carrying cargo

from the Black Sea. -Yeah.

Awesome. OK, let's get aboard.

[Josh] The finds here confirm Fourni's position along a far-reaching

trade route, which explains not only why so many ships

were passing by, but that many of them were likely

unfamiliar with these waters.

But their cargo isn't fully solving the mystery

of why these ships sank.

To figure out what's going on below the waves,

I decide to get a different perspective from above.

Way above.

Atop the so-called "Cape of Death,"

I link up with our local expert, Manos.

After all, he's the one who first alerted George

to the wrecks here,

and he knows these waters better than anyone.

Let's talk about this mystery.

So, we've seen that there are wrecks

all around these cliffs, right?

We've seen them from all different time periods,

and we know they're not all there because of piracy.

We know they're not all there because of storms.

These bays were considered safe harbor for ships, historically.

So, you're the local.

What do you think is happening here?

Just, I think there are other forces at work here.

Other forces? What kind of other forces?

So you're talking, what, gods and monsters here?

-[Manos] In a way, maybe. -OK, how so?

Navigating through Fourni is not like navigating

in other places. -Why?

There are strange weather phenomenon here.

Not just storms?

This is something you've experienced?

I have experienced this many times.

Like, where?

Like the channels between the islands.

So, between the islands, there's phenomenon?

There are strange weather phenomenon

that we don't see anywhere else.

Josh, do you know Scylla and Charybdis?

Scylla and Charybdis from "The Odyssey"?

Exactly.

[Josh] Ah, yes, Scylla and Charybdis.

Back to high school mythology class.

Scylla is a six-headed, man-eating beast

that lives in a cave on one shore of a narrow strait...

while Charybdis is a huge,

ship-swallowing whirlpool near the other.

In "The Odyssey," Odysseus makes a very difficult call,

avoiding the loss of his entire ship to Charybdis by steering

towards Scylla and sacrificing six of his men as a result.

Tough break, guys.

Do you think there's a couple of monsters out here?

[Manos speaking]

Is this something you think we can observe?

Does this happen all the time?

We can sail through this channel

and you can see for yourself.

All right, let's go meet a monster.

[Josh] Are there weird currents here?

Yes, and they are very strong and unpredictable.

Do you think that could be associated with these wrecks?

That's what we will find out.

Right, OK, let's do it.

We're on the hunt for a monster.

The culprit behind 58 known shipwrecks off the coast

of the islands of Fourni.

Local sailor, Manos Mitikas, believes the waters here

exhibit some sort of mysterious phenomena, so we're attempting

to mirror the experience ancient sailors faced

while scientifically measuring the wind and currents as we go.

We'll use a marine anemometer

to measure wind speed and direction,

but testing the current is a lot more complicated.

For that, we have Norwegian scientist Patrick Johansen

from the Nortek Group.

So, tell me what it is that you're gonna do here.

-Tell me about Nortek. -We make AD2CPs.

-[Josh] AD2CPs? -Yeah.

That's a robot from "Star Wars," right?

-[Patrick chuckles] -What's an AD2CP?

Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler.

-Now I see why you shortened it. -[Patrick] Yeah.

So, OK, what does this device do?

-We have two of them here. -OK, these are them.

Oh, they are "Star Wars" droids. Look at these things.

So, what do these do?

it sends out short underwater sound pulses that travel

through the water column, generating echoes.

Detected back at the instrument to calculate the speed

and directions of the particles in the water.

In other words, through a very high tech mechanism,

calculating the current or the speed of the water around it.

Yeah.

Where do you think we should take those measurements?

Definitely between the two islands.

-In the channel, there? -In the channel.

OK, so let's get these to the divers

and rock and roll, yeah? -[Patrick] Rock and roll.

[Josh] Let's do it.

To see how the current moves, the buoys need to be manually

deployed a few hundred feet apart near the seabed.

almost 200 feet down.

So, Manos has technical divers from George's team

set them in place.

Once the buoys are positioned, they begin to measure

the current underwater.

However, because of the depth, the buoys are unable to track

the currents at the surface.

To cover that, we're going old school.

OK, so we have this very powerful, very visible

marine dye that we're gonna be putting in the water

on a buoy towed behind the sailboat.

This is environmentally friendly, but very,

very bright.

And we should be able to see what the surface currents

are doing as we travel along.

[dramatic music playing]

OK, dye pack is away.

Whoo! Look at that.

[Josh] We raise sail and make for the straits

between the islands of Fourni and Agios Minas.

Dozens of ships have met their fate

in this narrow channel.

Are you ready for the fun part?

-Driving through the straits? -Through the Cape of Death.

[chuckles nervously]

Let's go.

As we approach, even on this clear day,

I can feel the barometer falling.

In centuries past, countless doomed sailors

before me must have felt the same thing.

Now we hope to finally learn why,

preferably without joining them.

So we're approaching the channel here,

and already something just changed in an instant.

This chop just emerged, and the wind

just totally shifted.

[dramatic music playing]

Whoo!

Wind just picked way up.

The anemometer jumped from five miles an hour to 20

in a heartbeat, and gusting.

25 knots!

[bleep]

That got real.

We're up to almost 30 knots here

on what is a sunny, calm day if you're not in this channel.

Everywhere else, it's a paradise.

-Here, it's hell. -It's hell.

Imagine trying to come through this channel

in really bad weather. It would be madness.

Absolutely.

We are in a vortex.

The anemometer is literally spinning in circles.

You can see the dye pack trail

is just swirling in the water now.

Really erratic currents in here.

The wind and water are churning wildly around us.

Minutes ago, we lived in a predictable world.

Now, we're at the mercy of the gods.

Everybody hold on!

[ominous music playing]

Whoa!

Hang on!

Whoa!

[Josh] Back in ancient times, ceramic amphorae

were all the rage.

In modern day Athens, the tradition of great pottery lives on.

So, I thought I'd get behind the wheel for a quick lesson.

-What do you want to do? -Make a beautiful ceramic vase.

-It's your first time? -It's my first time.

-Be gentle. -[Stravroula] OK.

-[Josh] OK. -[Stravroula] Watch me.

-Try to up and down the piece. -What?

-Like this. -Oh, boy.

Oh, god. It's...no, it didn't happen.

-Something went wrong. -But it's good.

-Thank you. -[Stravroula] Bravo.

Thank you. Bravo.

Eh? Ah!

[Josh] Ah-ha-ha!

-Bravo, bravo. -OK, now it's condescending.

After a shaky start, I finally get the hang of it.

OK, and done.

I gotta say, turned out better than I expected.

It's not bad, right? First try.

There's even a price tag in it.

[Stravroula laughs]

Sorry, I'll put this back.

[adventurous music playing]

So, we're in it. It's gusting to forty!

[Josh] In the narrow straits off the Greek islands of Fourni,

I'm helping Manos Mitikas measure the wind and water

currents to determine if a unique anomaly is responsible

for the dozens of shipwrecks found nearby.

Gusts at about 30 to 40 knots.

[Josh] Then, as quickly as the conditions

kicked up, they subside.

Whew!

Oh, my word. And now, no wind.

No wind. These gusts are deadly.

Yeah, you can see it.

I mean, just under half sail and we're halfway over.

Nobody expects this,

when it's out of the channel. -That's right.

The weather's totally different out there.

-You sail in, it's like a trap. -[Manos] Exactly.

-Josh, you see the many rocks? -[Josh] The many rocks? Yes.

This is Scylla.

That's Scylla? The many-headed monster?

That's Scylla.

All the shoals, all the rocks there that ships could hit.

And behind us, the dye trail is swirling.

-[Manos] This is Charybdis. -It is Charybdis.

It is a whirlpool of current over there.

-So, maybe this is the monster. -Exactly.

Mythical monsters in real life.

Manos, I think we got a good idea of what's going on here.

We've got the dye pack trail to look at.

We've got your data to look at.

So, should we head for a safe harbor?

-Let's go for a beer. -Oh, God bless this man.

[Manos chuckles]

All right, guys, we're headed home.

[victorious music playing]

[Josh] Soon after our return to port, Nortek was able

to retrieve the data from their buoys,

which showed something remarkable.

The currents in the channel actually move

against the prevailing winds.

In other words, a one-two punch during stormy weather,

potentially dragging ships into the rocks

or capsizing them in a fierce wind.

We discovered earlier that some of the shipwrecks here came

from faraway places like the Black Sea, which might also

mean that the sailors guiding them were unfamiliar

with these waters and their deadly temperament.

I've been privileged to travel through this land

of ancient gods and monsters,

where the islands, the temples, and even the waters

remain immortal.

They serve as everlasting monuments to the forces

that the ancient Greeks believed were in control

of their destinies.

The poet Homer knew the waters near Fourni well enough

to warn of their danger.

His hero, Odysseus, made it home,

but thousands of flesh and blood sailors did not.

They prayed to Poseidon and perished in his silence.

Today, though, archaeologists like George Koutsouflakis

and his team are turning the myths of old

into scientific knowledge.

His excavations have recovered

eight different types of amphorae

hailing from across the Aegean, from Greece to Turkey,

but also as far as Syria, North Africa,

Italy, and Spain,

remarkable artifacts

that help tell the stories of ancient mariners

in ways we never imagined before.

It's hard work that progresses

day by day, season after season,

as even more shipwrecks are discovered here,

including the latest, which George spotted

with an ROV shortly before we left Fourni.

That's an amphora! Hey!

Unbelievable!

This could be the tip of the iceberg.

Who knows how many wrecks are there.

Right, there could be untold wrecks in these deeper waters.

-[George] Mm-hmm. -Amazing.

This wreck, the 59th on Georgia's map,

is in the deepest water yet explored around Fourni.

It's a find that radically expands the territory

where these ships are being found.

So this maritime graveyard could be even larger

than we ever imagined.

A hidden bounty of knowledge deep beneath

Greece's now legendary island of shipwrecks.