The seas off of the outer banks of North Carolina can be a sailor's nightmare.

The winds whip in every direction, the weather is unpredictable, and the sand in the seafloor

constantly shifting underneath you.

And that's not even mentioning all the hurricanes.

For the last 500 years, thousands of ships have met their doom here, bestowing on this place

the ominous nickname, the graveyard of the Atlantic.

And in 2006, this treacherous stretch of coastline saw one of its most unusual cargos ever

wash up.

Let's face it, it's not every day that you have thousands of bags of Doritos wash ashore

anywhere.

I'm Amanda McGowan, and this is Atlas of Scura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible,

and wondrous places.

And today we're taking you to Hatteris Island on the outer banks, to tell you the story

of the 2006 Doritos shipwreck, or, as the locals call it, the shipwreck.

That's after this.

This about shipwrecks often start in the same way, with a storm.

In November 2006, that storm was a nori-ster off the coast of North Carolina, and a container

ship called the Courtney L found itself caught right in the middle of it.

The Courtney L was on its way from Wilmington, Delaware to Costa Rica when it happened.

It's unclear exactly what caused this mishap, maybe a huge wave or a stormy gust of wind

to not begin to ship, but four of its containers, giant tractor-trailer-sized containers, fell

off into the ocean.

...