The world-famous epics of Homer's "Odyssey" contains many detailed instructions to mariners, and, of course, is based on real evidence of Greek sailors. By the year 800 BC they were already perfectly oriented to the Mediterranean, mastered it and started a more than 100 colonies. Around the time when Alexander of Macedon marched to campaign against the Persians came to India, the Greek navigator and astronomer Pea Fairy went to the Norwegian coast. Discoveries which he made in the North Sea, were the result of an unexpected deviation from the route. When he came into port Massalia (menny modern Marseilles), Greek merchants have agreed to Pytheas, that he would try to find a direct trade route to the "tin islands" at the southwestern tip of Britain, bypassing the Lands End, a lively center of trade in intermediate (then Cornwall) . Pytheas agreed and went north Gal Lee (modern France). Soon he was off the coast of Britain. And from there sailed further along the west coast of modern England, and came to Ireland. Then he went to the Hebrides and Orkney Islands, has not yet rounded the UK, which is mapped as a triangle. But he is slightly deviated to the north and probably went to the coast of Norway near Trondheim, and visited the island of Helgoland, famous for its amber. On the voyage Pytheas of antiquity were preserved only fragmentary information. Very often ridiculed his contemporaries and later writers, Pytheas called a liar and a fantasist. Why, you ask? Yes, because too seemed incredible stories of the sea in the north and solidifies as it is covered with slippery jellyfish. Today believe that he had seen ice hummocks. Pytheas also said that in summer the sun never sets on the north and the sea "breathes" every 6 hours, subject to the phases of the moon (tides, which are not observed in the Mediterranean Sea). Today, it is sufficient, and these scraps of information to be considered Pifsya one of the greatest astronomers, geographers and explorers of the ancient world.
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