Could the legend of Atlantis just been a reference to early European sailors visiting North Africa, across the Mediterranean?
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext... (press "focus" to swap language)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%83%CF%84%CE%AE%CE%BB%CE%B...
It's kind of completely unambiguous though, given all the details:
> from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean,
> the ocean there was at that time navigable;
> in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,'
The location is clearly out in the unnavigable Atlantic, and the [whatever] of Heracles form a mouth.
Although there probably was some sort of maritime link from Greece to beyond Gibraltar, the link to the Atlantis myth seems rather tenuous and moreover, isn't needed to explain where Platon got the idea for this ancient thalassocracy since he of course lived in Athens when they were doing similar stuff with the Delian League.