The Desert of Ghost Ships. Only 30 years ago, this was home to our planet’s 4th largest inland water mass; an ancient sea so vast, even Alexander the Great wrote of his struggles to cross it; where fishing commerce boomed and holidaymakers once flocked to its seaside spa town. Now, for the first time in 600 years, the Aral Sea is (almost) bone dry, and the fleet of giant, rusted ships left in its wake have become some of the only proof of the past. The Aral Sea is (or was) so large, it spreads over two Eurasian countries that now straddle its dusty remains: Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan