Wall Bay

Wall Bay, which appears as Ruin Bay on some charter itineraries, is an anchorage in the south-western corner of Skopea Limani, the sheltered water at the western end of the Gulf of Fethiye. The shore is rocky and steep, thick with pines and oleander that run all the way down to the waterline, and the bay holds its colour late in the day — the light at sunset is the reason a good number of boats stay the night here rather than push on to Gocek.

Anchoring at Wall Bay

A restaurant on the north-western shore runs two jetties with room for around 40 yachts, with the option of mooring alongside. Depths on the outer side of the pontoon are over 10 metres, dropping to roughly 2–3 metres on the inside. The bay is protected from every direction except the north-east. The bottom is mixed — silt, sand and stone — so it is worth backing down hard and checking that the anchor has properly set before leaving the boat.

The restaurant staff will take your lines and help with the mooring. The kitchen works with Turkish home cooking and whatever has been landed that day, and in season there is live music in the evenings, played on traditional instruments. With shelter, a jetty and food ashore, Wall Bay is a classic stop on a Fethiye blue cruise itinerary, usually taken on the leg between Gocek and Fethiye.

Swimming and the Ruins

The water is calm and clear enough to swim, snorkel, dive or take a kayak out straight from the boat, and the steep green shoreline keeps one end of the bay or the other in shade for most of the day.

The bay is named after the ancient wall that cuts across the isthmus behind it. This was the landward defence of Lydae, a city on the border between Lycia and Caria whose ruins lie on the plateau of the peninsula to the south; the wall is still standing in good condition, and the climb up to the city itself takes 30 to 40 minutes from the shore. In the cove next door are the partly submerged remains known as Cleopatra's Bath, which you can swim over, along with the ruins of a Byzantine monastery.