Letter from Samos: With a vast coastline of 15,000 kilometres and some 6,000 islands and islets, Greece is vulnerable when it comes to deterring determined traffickers. Senior sources in the Greek coastguard say there has been a rise in the number of migrants sailing from Turkey.
The Aegean waters separating Samos from the Anatolian coastline are only 1 km wide, making this the shortest distance between Greece and neighbouring Turkey. The island's own coastline of 159 km is impossible to monitor around the clock, and Samos is used regularly as a dumping ground by human traffickers promising to take Asian migrants to Europe.
A few weeks ago, Greek police arrested 26 illegal immigrants from Afghanistan, including two women and a child, who had been brought to the island in two boats.
Police said all 26 were in good health - but they were the lucky ones: a few days later, three African migrants drowned in the same waters when their rickety boat capsized off Samos.
Samos is so close to the Turkish shore that some immigrants have swum across, wearing flippers or even floated aboard children's plastic boats or makeshift wooden rafts.
Smugglers have been caught ferrying migrants on fishing boats, sailboats and even speedboats, which can make the trip in a matter of minutes.
Recently, the Turks rescued 23 illegal immigrants on a plastic boat after one of them called the Greek authorities from a mobile phone to say that the boat had engine problems.
While migrants put their lives at risk, the smugglers are seldom caught, although a court in Samos jailed two Turks for eight years and fined them €45,000 each a few months ago for smuggling seven African migrants into Greece.
Greek coastguards claim that Turkish patrols of these narrow waters eased off in recent months as a consequence of military tensions in the Aegean. But no one in Samos is surprised that trafficking in the waters between their island and the Anatolian coast continues, for this has been the interface between Europe and Asia for centuries.
After Xerxes and his Persian armies were defeated at Marathon and Plataea, his sea forces were ruined in the straits between Samos and Anatolia.
It was these events which came to mind when the poet Byron wrote:
In vain, in vain: strike other chords; Fill high the cup of Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
However, for visitors who are less pressed than migrants and asylum seekers, Samos has charms beyond merely tasting the Samian wine. The island claimed to be the birthplace of Hera, and that she married Zeus there, too.
Samos was also the birthplace of Pythagoras, who taught us that the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides of a right- angled triangle, and of Epicurus, the philosopher who sought happiness, as the chief human good, through freedom from anxiety and fear.
The islanders claim that Samos was visited by both the Apostle Paul and Saint John the Divine, and even by Christ himself.
But after the conflicts between the Byzantine Empire and the advancing Turks, the population of Samos was eventually evacuated to neighbouring Chios by the Genoese in the 15th century.
For a hundred years, Samos remained isolated and deserted - until 1562, when a Turkish admiral, Kilic Ali, invited descendants of the original Samiots to return to their ancestral home.
Despite playing a vigorous role in the Greek war of independence in the 1830s, Samos was not incorporated into the modern Greek state until 1913. Mythology and ancient history still play key roles in attracting tourists to Samos.
Fifty years ago, Tigani, which had been the capital of the island under Polcrates, had its name changed to Pythagsreio to mark the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the world's first school of philosophy by Pythagoras.
The old name meant "frying pan" - a reference to the summer heat in the town.
Today, Pythagsreio is a picturesque fishing harbour with the island's only marina and elegant, restored traditional houses.
Out at the edge of the pier, the shape of a 1989 statue of Pythagoras by Nikolaos Ikaris is a reminder of the mathematical and philosophical genius of the island.
Earlier this summer, another statue was in the news in Samos, when a 2,600-year-old bronze figure stolen from the Archaeological Museum in Vathy during the second World War was returned by a London- based collector, James Ede, who bought it unwittingly in Switzerland.
The antiquities of the most easterly island in the Aegean soon became a symbol of hope for all Greeks. "I can't help but draw a comparison with the Parthenon Marbles," said the deputy culture minister Fani Palli-Petralia. "I hope your example will be followed by others, like the British Museum."