Asi Bay

Asi Koyu, also called Asi Ici, is a small bay on the stretch of coast between Sarigerme and Dalyan, west of Gocek, and boats pass it without noticing. It opens on the north side of the Disibilmez headland, just west of Baba Adasi, and the entrance is hard to pick out until you are almost inside it. There is a sand beach at the head, dark rock on both sides, and one restaurant. That is the whole inventory, which is the reason people come.

Where it is

The bay lies in the Ortaca district of Mugla province, on the coast between Sarigerme and Dalyan. It is unmarked on most maps and there is no road down to it worth using, so almost everyone arrives by water - either on a day boat out of Sarigerme, or on a yacht working west from the Gocek gulf. Baba Adasi, the island immediately east, is the landmark to steer by.

The two halves of the bay are different. The southern side has the sand and the easy swimming; the northern side is rock, with reef grottoes along the waterline and a wild strip of beach set back at the head of the inlet. Nothing has been built on either.

The anchorage

Depths in the middle of the bay run to about 8-10 metres over sand, and the holding is good in front of the restaurant's floating pier. Someone from the restaurant will come out to help with lines between April and November, which is the only season it operates. There is room to anchor independently to the southwest, but the bottom there turns rocky and the anchor needs watching before you trust it.

Protection is good from the northwest, which covers the prevailing summer wind, and poor from the south. A southerly puts swell straight into the bay, so it is not a place to sit out bad weather; check the forecast before committing to a night here. It is one of the anchorages you'll visit on a private gulet charter from Gocek, usually as a lunch or overnight stop on the way west towards Dalyan rather than a destination in its own right.

Swimming and diving

The water is clear enough that the bay has become a diving stop. The northern side has reef grottoes and small underwater caves, their walls covered in coloured sponges, and the fish worth looking for are grouper and rays over the rock. Loggerhead turtles, Caretta caretta, turn up in the bay from time to time; the beach at Iztuzu near Dalyan, a short distance west along this same coast, is one of the species' main nesting sites in Turkey, which is why they are around at all. Visibility is generally good, and the south side of the bay gives easy swimming off the sand for anyone not diving.

What is nearby

Baba Adasi, the island just east, has its own anchorage and is the usual next stop. Sarigerme, with the long public beach, is a short run in the other direction. Further west the coast reaches the mouth of the Dalyan river: Iztuzu beach on one side of it, and upstream the rock tombs and the ancient city of Kaunos, which is the standard full-day excursion from this part of the coast.

Ashore

The restaurant sits on the northeast side, behind a small rocky islet, and works off a pier assembled from plastic floats. It serves standard Turkish coastal cooking and it is the only food in the bay - there is no shop, no fuel and nothing else on the beach beyond basic facilities.

The slopes around the bay are pine, not scrub, and the shoreline is protected, which is why there is no building along it. One local detail worth knowing: bee colonies live in the pines above the beach. This is normal for the area and the honey is the reason the hives are there, but anyone with a sting allergy should carry what they need rather than assume it is a problem for someone else.