Gokgemile Bay

Gokgemile Bay opens westward off the outer, seaward side of the Kapidag Peninsula, in the Dalaman district of Mugla on Turkey's south-west coast. Two wooded headlands close it in on either side, pine hills rise behind it, and the shoreline shifts from sand to shingle to bare rock along its length. There is no road down to it and nothing built on it, which is why it stays empty through a season when the anchorages around Gocek are full. The whole coast here falls inside the Fethiye-Gocek Special Environmental Protection Area, a designation that has held back building along the shoreline since the 1980s and is a large part of the reason the bay still looks the way it does.

The bay itself

• The water drops away quickly from the shore and stays clear, reaching around 27°C (82°F) in high summer — warm enough for long swims, with good visibility over the rock at either end of the beach for snorkelling and diving.
• A path climbs the ridge behind the beach. From the top the view runs down over the bay and along the Dalaman coast towards Ekincik, with open Mediterranean to the west.
• Facing west, the bay takes the last of the light and the sunsets that come with it. It is sheltered from every direction except the west, so the water is normally flat.
• There are no facilities of any kind — no taverna, no water, no shade beyond the trees. The flat ground behind the beach is used for camping.

Getting there

Almost everyone arrives by sea. The bay is best reached during a Gocek gulet cruise: it lies on the outer coast that boats leaving Gocek round on their way west, which makes it a natural lunch stop or overnight anchorage for crews working towards Ekincik and the Dalyan delta. Day boats out of Fethiye also call in. The one overland approach is on foot — a path from Hamam Bay, the cove with the part-submerged ancient bath ruins known locally as Cleopatra's Bath, reaches Gokgemile in about twenty minutes.

June to September is the dependable window, with almost no rain. July and August are the hottest months, with daytime highs averaging around 34°C (93°F); June and September run several degrees cooler and see fewer boats. Even at the peak, the lack of road access keeps the numbers down.

Bring water, food and shoes you can walk the ridge path in. Nothing is sold at the bay.

What lies nearby

Hamam Bay is the closest neighbour, twenty minutes away on foot. Sarsala Bay and the long beach at Sarigerme are each about 12 kilometres off by road on the other side of the peninsula, and Gunluklu Bay — named for the sweetgum trees behind it — is a short run up the coast. Aga Limani, round on the north-east side of the Kapidag Peninsula, is one of the best-protected anchorages in the gulf.

Gocek lies north-east, on the far side of the peninsula: a small port town ringed by marinas, with a dozen anchorages of the Twelve Islands within an hour or two under way. Dalaman town and its airport are inland to the north. From Gocek the standard circuit takes in Tasyaka Bay — better known as Bedri Rahmi Bay, after the painter who left a fish on one of its rocks — along with Domuz Island, Yassica Islands, Boynuzbuku and Samanlik Bay, all inside the sheltered water of the Gulf of Fethiye. Further east again, off Fethiye near Oludeniz, Gemiler Island carries the ruins of Byzantine churches and a covered processional way, and is worth the longer passage.

Onward, to the west

West of the peninsula the coast runs on towards Ekincik, the usual jumping-off point for the Dalyan delta. From there small boats work up the river through the reed beds past the Lycian rock tombs cut into the cliff at Kaunos, to the ancient city itself and out to Iztuzu, the long sandbar beach at the river mouth that is a protected nesting ground for loggerhead turtles. Gokgemile makes a convenient last quiet night before that leg, or a first one on the way back.

What to do

Swimming and snorkelling take up most of a day here. The rock at both ends of the beach holds enough structure and fish to be interesting under water, and the deeper ground outside the bay is dived from boats out of Gocek and Fethiye. On land there is the ridge path and very little else, which is the point of the place. Boats that stay the night have the bay to themselves once the day traffic has gone.