Kiris Bay

Kiriş is a small coastal settlement about 6 kilometres from Kemer on Turkey's Antalya coast, tucked into a bay backed by pine forest and the foothills of the Taurus Mountains. Sheltered from the prevailing winds, its clear water and quiet shoreline have made it one of the region's better-known diving bases, with operators running boats out of Kemer marina to reefs and an underwater cave close to the beach.

A Sheltered Bay Below the Mountains

The bay's calm, shallow entry suits both first-time divers and snorkellers, while the pine-covered slopes give it a more secluded feel than the built-up centre of Kemer itself. Compared with the busier beaches close to town, Kiriş keeps a slower pace, with only a handful of small hotels and pensions set back from the water.

This whole stretch of shoreline lies inside Beydağları Coastal National Park, also known as Olympos Beydağları, which was declared a national park on 16 March 1972 and covers some 34,425 hectares running from Sarısu, south-west of Antalya, down to Cape Gelidonya. That protection is the reason the hills behind Kiriş remain forested rather than developed. Rising directly behind them is Tahtalı Dağı, the ancient Mount Olympos, which reaches 2,365 metres and is the highest summit standing this close to the sea anywhere on the Turkish Mediterranean; a cable car now runs to the top from near Kemer. Because that wall of rock sits inland to the west, the sun over Kiriş does not drop into the horizon so much as slip behind the mountains.

Diving in Kiriş Bay

Thanks to its short hop from the marina, many charter guests exploring Turkey anchor here for the afternoon, swimming or diving before continuing along the coast toward Phaselis or Çıralı. The dive site known as Kiriş Cave Bay takes its name from two small caverns in the cliffs that enclose it and lies roughly 15 minutes by dive boat from Kemer's yacht harbour. The seabed shelves gently from the shore before dropping to around 18 metres, a range that allows training dives and more experienced groups to use the same site, and the surrounding rock is broken up by small caves and swim-throughs. Divers regularly report moray eels, dusky groupers and black scorpionfish among the rocks, with barracuda passing through the open water.

Diving centres in the area typically operate from spring through late autumn, when visibility is best, with May to September considered the prime window and surface temperatures climbing to around 28°C at the height of summer. Kemer's other celebrated site, the Üç Adalar or Three Islands group, lies about 45 minutes away by boat and offers a far larger complex of reefs and underwater caves with depths running from 3 to 60 metres, so many visitors pair the two over consecutive days.

Phaselis and the Ancient Coast

The bay's position between Kemer and the ancient site of Phaselis makes it easy to combine a dive with a short walk through nearby ruins on the same day. Phaselis was founded in 690 BC by colonists from Rhodes and sits roughly 16 kilometres south of Kemer, near Tekirova. Its unusual layout follows directly from its geography: the city occupied a small headland with three separate harbours, the northern, the battle harbour and the sheltered southern one still used for swimming today, joined by a paved main street some 24 metres wide that runs from one anchorage to the other. Roman-period baths, agoras, a theatre and an aqueduct survive along it, together with a monumental gateway raised in honour of the emperor Hadrian.

Getting There and What Else Is Close

Kemer lies roughly 44 kilometres south-west of Antalya by road, and its marina, Kemer Türkiz, offers in the region of 230 to 250 berths afloat plus around 125 ashore and a 60-tonne travel lift, which makes it the natural base for boats working this part of the coast. From Kiriş it is a short trip to Moonlight, or Ayışığı, beach in Kemer, a 300-metre curve of fine sand shaded by mature pines, palms and eucalyptus. Further along the shore, the ruins of Olympos sit in a river valley behind the beach at Çıralı, and above them lie the vents of Yanartaş, the ancient Chimaera, where methane escaping from the rock has burned continuously for thousands of years and once served as a night-time landmark for sailors along this coast.