Knights Island

Sovalye Adasi, Knights Island in English, is a long, narrow strip of land lying across the mouth of Fethiye harbour, about ten minutes offshore. It is the only island in the Gulf of Fethiye with people living on it, and the only one where you can walk from one end to the other on a footpath rather than a road.

The Name and What Is Left of the Past

Sovalye means knight. The island takes the name from the Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes, who held Rhodes from 1310 to 1522 and used this outcrop in the fifteenth century as a lookout over the sea approach to Telmessos, the ancient port that is now Fethiye. Before that it was known as Makri, or Megri, which was also the Greek name for the surrounding district.

The visible ruins are largely Byzantine: stretches of wall on the higher ground, cisterns, and a church with mosaic flooring, standing among granite blocks and marble column drums from earlier centuries. More of it is underwater. Foundations and wall lines run out from the shore into shallow water, close enough to the surface that snorkellers can follow them.

What the Island Is Like

There are no roads and no cars. A single footpath runs the full length of the island, threading between houses and through pine, and takes roughly 45 minutes end to end. It opens out onto views back across the water to Fethiye, Calis and Kizil Ada, Red Island. Around seventy buildings stand on the island, a mix of large villas and older cottages, with four places to stay and a restaurant among them. The beaches are short and narrow, sand and shingle, shaded by pine at the edges, and the swimming areas have barriers and a diving platform.

Anchoring and Swimming

Depths off the island run between five and eight metres over sand, which holds reliably, and many charter guests anchor here for the afternoon before carrying on into Fethiye or Calis for the night. The water is calm on the sheltered side and clear enough over the submerged ruins to make out wall lines from the surface, which is what most people come to snorkel. Loggerhead turtles turn up regularly in the gulf and around the island's shallows.

Getting There

Water taxis cross from Fethiye and from Calis. The crossing is short and there is no vehicle ferry, because there is nothing on the island to drive. Day visitors mostly come for the beach and the walk; the small hotels and the restaurant look out over the gulf, which is where the island's reputation for its evenings comes from.