Bodrum Peninsula and Datça
Naming the cove gets you further here than naming the town
The Aegean reaches the Bodrum peninsula from the west, the north and the south, and Datça runs out to the point where the Aegean and the Mediterranean meet.
Two peninsulas made of separate coves and villages rather than one continuous front. Somebody who can say Ovabükü, or the lane behind a café in Eski Datça, starts from a far better place than somebody who can only say Datça.
Ring Seekers is a lost ring and jewellery recovery service that connects people who lost a ring, wedding band, watch or phone on the Bodrum peninsula and at Datça with a metal detectorist who can search there.
Tell us what happened and where. We find a detectorist who can reach the bay, brief them with your map and photos, and tell you honestly if the odds are poor.
They sit close together and yet travel apart. Bodrum's only land neighbour is Milas, and Datça can be reached by road only through Marmaris. The ferry between Bodrum harbour and Körmen is what joins them.
Start with the peninsula, then the shore of it
The shore is the second question, and on Datça it is a real fork, because the directorate puts the northern coves in the Aegean and lists the others as facing the Mediterranean, and the two are reached differently. On the Bodrum peninsula the more useful split is which village a cove belongs to, since almost every cove there is somebody's village.
Then walk the day through in order rather than hunting for the moment itself. Where you left the car or got off the dolmuş, where the bags went down, where you went in, where you came out.
Places we cover on the Bodrum peninsula and at Datça
- Bodrum town, its harbour front and the castle
- Gümbet, and Bardakçı cove which the council calls Salmakis
- Bitez and the shore below its orchards
- Ortakent with Yahşi, Bağla and Kargı, the Camel beach
- Akyarlar at the southern tip of the peninsula
- Turgutreis, its marina and Kadıkalesi
- Gümüşlük and Tavşan Adası
- Yalıkavak and its marina
- The Küdür peninsula and its coves
- Gündoğan, the old Farilya
- Göltürkbükü
- Torba, Güvercinlik and Yalıçiftlik
- Mazı with Ilgın, Sedef and Kargılı
- Karaada, opposite Bodrum
- Mumcular and the Karaova villages
- Datça town and its harbour
- Eski Datça and Hızırşah
- Kargı cove, close to Datça town
- Gebekum beach and dune at Kızlan
- Karaincir and Aktur in Emecik
- Palamutbükü with Yaka and Cumalı
- Mesudiye and its coves at Ovabükü, Hayıtbükü and Kızılbük
- Domuzbükü and Çiftlik cove
- Körmen, where the Bodrum ferry docks
Each of these corners is its own small job
A village cove, a town front and a boat landing ask for different things from whoever searches.
Bodrum town, Gümbet and Bardakçı
The castle was raised between the harbours by the Knights of St John. Gümbet is the cove immediately next to the centre and carries the hotels, bars and restaurants. Bodrum council writes Bardakçı up under the name Salmakis.
Bitez, Ortakent and the shore going west
Bitez lies west of Gümbet cove, and the tourism directorate describes a long half moon of beach with shallow water, hotels on the sea and mandarin orchards behind. Akvaryum cove, in between, has no access from land at all. Ortakent stands where the Bitez, Turgutreis and Yalıkavak roads cross, and Kargı beach, the Camel beach, lies between Yahşi and Bağla.
Akyarlar, Turgutreis and Gümüşlük
Akyarlar, also called Kefaluka, sits at the southern end of the peninsula and is the nearest point to Kos, with the Hüseyin Burnu lighthouse beside it. Turgutreis is the largest settlement on the peninsula after Bodrum and has a marina, with Kadıkalesi south of it. At Gümüşlük you can wade out to Tavşan Adası inside the bay.
Yalıkavak, Gündoğan and Göltürkbükü
These face north. Yalıkavak is known for its windmills, its market and its fish restaurants, and has a marina. Gündoğan, whose older name Farilya is still used, sits on a rocky hillside between Yalıkavak and Göltürkbükü, with boats out to Apostol Adası. Göltürkbükü is the villa and yacht end. Küdür, the peninsula at the northwest tip of Yalıkavak, has a public beach, a picnic ground and quiet coves beyond them.
Torba, Güvercinlik, Mazı and Yalıçiftlik
The quieter side. Torba makes a bag shaped indentation inland, which the directorate credits for its calm and its shelter from the wind, and at Güvercinlik it says the sea is as calm as a lake. Mazı has a cold fresh water spring at the foot of the Ilgın, Sedef and Kargılı coves. Yalıçiftlik is an Aegean village with a long beach, and Kargıcak cove has no public transport to it.
Datça town, Eski Datça and the near coves
Eski Datça sits in the middle of the peninsula, and the district governorate describes cobbled lanes, bougainvillea and whitewashed stone houses with courtyards, many of them now cafés and guesthouses. Hızırşah is the neighbourhood nearest the district centre, and Kargı cove, close to town, has a stony beach and a stony bottom. Out at Kızlan, among the windmills, Gebekum is a long sand beach backed by an old dune, and a shallow bar lets you walk through the sea to the islet opposite.
Palamutbükü, Mesudiye and the far coves
The tourism directorate counts fifty two coves and bays around the Datça peninsula, so the name of yours matters. Palamutbükü falls inside Yaka and Cumalı, its beach sand and shingle mixed. Kızılbük, Hayıtbükü and Ovabükü belong to Mesudiye, Ovabükü being the biggest. Domuzbükü has no road, and Çiftlik cove runs pine forest down onto sand.
What Ring Seekers is, in plain terms
Who searches is the part we work out
You describe the cove. Tracking down a detectorist who can get to it, and arranging it with them, is work that happens here and not on your phone. Everything you read from us is in English.
A marked map beats a paragraph
Drop a pin on a map, screenshot it, and send that along with any holiday photographs the item happens to appear in. Blurred and badly framed still help. Nothing is too rough to send.
Being there yourself helps
Standing on the spot and pointing at it beats any amount of writing, so say whether you are still in Turkey and which days you have left. If you have already flown home, that changes who we look for, not whether we look.
Ask the other people who were there
Somebody else always remembers a different half of the day, so ask them first. Then note what it is made of and anything engraved on it. Necklaces, chains, earrings, bracelets, watches, an Oura ring, a phone, a key fob and metal framed glasses all count the same here as a wedding band.
Ground, water and how you got in
Small differences that change what a search looks like here.
The bottom changes from cove to cove
Palamutbükü is sand and shingle mixed together. Karaincir in Emecik is fine sand with shallow water off it, and Bitez is shallow as well. Tell us what was under your feet on the sand, and then what was under them in the water.
Wind is part of the day here
The tourism directorate calls Bitez cove open to the wind and good for windsurfing, kitesurfing and sailing, says the same of Akyarlar for surfers, and puts Datça down as suiting sailing and surfing. If you were on a board or behind a kite when it happened, say so.
Much of a week here is spent afloat
Gulets run day trips from nearly every village on the Bodrum peninsula and blue voyages from Bodrum harbour, and on Datça the day boats work the Mediterranean coves. Boarding point and landing point are the two things to write down from a day like that.
Questions about the Bodrum Peninsula and Datça
A necklace came off somewhere in the lanes at Eski Datça.
The district governorate describes Eski Datça as narrow cobbled lanes hung with bougainvillea and white stone houses built around courtyards, a good many of them working now as cafés, workshops and guesthouses. Start with where you ate and where you slept, then the walk between them.
We were at Karaincir, but we are not sure which Karaincir.
There is one on each peninsula, which catches people out. The Bodrum one is fine sand and sheltered from the poyraz wind. The Datça one is inside Emecik on the Marmaris road, fine sand with shallow water, reached by the Karaincir, Aktur and Marmaris buses. The road you came in on tells us which you mean.
A watch went in at Ovabükü or Hayıtbükü and the week has run together.
Kızılbük, Hayıtbükü and Ovabükü all belong to Mesudiye, which is why they blur together. Ovabükü is the biggest of the Mesudiye coves, and Kızılbük is the small quiet one along from Hayıtbükü. Go on size if nothing else comes back to you.
Gümbet is all we can say, and it was an evening.
Gümbet is the cove sitting right against the Bodrum town centre, packed with hotels, bars and restaurants, with water sports running off it. An evening narrows it usefully. Did the night stay on the sand or move back into the strip of bars behind, and roughly where along the cove did it start?
The ring went off the side of a gulet on the way over to Datça.
The crossing itself is only part of a gulet day. If it dropped into open water on the way over, that is a long shot, and you would hear that from us first. If the boat had already tied up in a cove, or you were still on the quay at either end, there is something to work with.
Our Oura ring is somewhere at Yalıkavak.
Yalıkavak is known for its windmills, its market and its fish restaurants, and it has a marina, so a day there usually belongs to one of those. Tell us which, and whether it came off your hand on land or in the water. Size is not the problem it sounds like.
Lost a phone at Domuzbükü, which we reached by boat.
No road reaches Domuzbükü. You get in by boat from Mesudiye or from Datça and the power there comes off a generator, so the boat you travelled on is where this starts. Give us the operator and the landing place, then say whether you were on the jetty or still aboard.
The only place name we wrote down was Torba.
Torba bends inland in the shape of a bag, and the tourism directorate puts its calm water and its shelter from the wind down to that shape. A cove that shape has edges to work from. Say which side you settled on and whether you swam.
Bodrum Peninsula and Datça
Put a name to the cove and the rest gets easier
WhatsApp is easiest, and there is no right time of day to use it.
Write it out as best you can manage and say plainly what you cannot remember. A cove whose name has gone can still be found from the road in, the building you parked beside, or what you could see across the water.