Fethiye, Ölüdeniz, Göcek, Kalkan and Kaş
Swimming along here often starts off a boat ladder or a rock
From the berths at Göcek down to the water east of Kaş, taking in Çalış, Belcekız, the Ölüdeniz lagoon, Kıdrak, Butterfly Valley, Kabak, Patara, Kalkan and Kaputaş on the way.
What usually decides this one is whether you can say which piece of water, or which patch of sand, rather than which town. Between Göcek and Kaş the shore keeps changing its mind, from open sand at Çalış and Patara to coves that most people reach from the water, and the two need very different answers.
Ring Seekers is a lost ring and jewellery recovery service that connects people who lost a ring, wedding band, watch or phone in Fethiye, Ölüdeniz, Göcek, Kalkan and Kaş with a metal detectorist who can search there.
Tell us what happened and where. We find a detectorist who can reach the coast, brief them with your map and photos, and tell you honestly if the odds are poor.
Göcek is the odd one out, tucked northwest of Fethiye at the head of its own bay. The rest reads south and then east from the town: Ölüdeniz below it with Ovacık and Hisarönü up on the hill behind, then Patara, Kalkan and Kaş further round the coast.
Wet or dry is the first thing we ask
Dry means the sand, the sunbed row, the steps, the walk back to the car. Wet means the sea, and then what matters is how deep you were standing and whether your feet were still on the bottom. Those two starts lead to different searches, so it is worth settling first.
After that, anything solid you were standing near helps: a landing stage, a set of steps, a sign, the corner of a building. Write what you have now and add to it later.
Places we cover in Fethiye, Ölüdeniz, Göcek, Kalkan and Kaş
- Fethiye town and its harbour front
- Çalış beach and the promenade behind it
- Şövalye Island in the Fethiye gulf
- The Twelve Islands and the boats out to them
- Göcek and its bay
- The Göcek waterfront and its yacht berths
- Belcekız beach at Ölüdeniz
- The Ölüdeniz lagoon and the Kumburnu shore
- Kıdrak beach, south along the coast
- Butterfly Valley and its beach
- Kabak Bay and the path down from Faralya
- Ovacık and Hisarönü on the hill above Ölüdeniz
- Patara beach and the path in from the village
- Kalkan harbour and the streets above it
- Kaputaş beach on the road between Kalkan and Kaş
- Akçagerme, the public beach west of Kaş
- Büyükçakıl beach at Kaş
- Kaş harbour and the town front
- The Çukurbağ peninsula
- Limanağzı, across the water from Kaş
- Üçağız and Kale, the village also called Simena
- Kekova and the strait behind it
How this coast breaks up once you look closely
Sand at one end and boat access at the other, with a lagoon in between.
Fethiye, Çalış and the mouth of the gulf
The town stands at the foot of Mendos Dağı on the eastern edge of the inner gulf, with Çalış and its beach a little to the north. Şövalye Island sits out in the gulf, and the islands large and small that people call the Twelve Islands begin there and carry on west and northwest across the gulf.
Göcek and the bay at the top of the run
Göcek bay was a harbour used as a market place long before it was anything else, and the ministry describes it today as a centre where yacht tourism is busy. Almost everything a visitor does there happens on a berth, a tender or a deck, so the question is nearly always which one.
Ölüdeniz, Belcekız and Kıdrak
The road from Fethiye climbs and drops through the pines and comes out on Belcekız bay, and the beach running out of that bay takes you along to the lagoon. Kıdrak lies further south again. Paragliders come down onto that beach from the mountain behind, and the day visitor facilities stand at Kumburnu on the shore.
Butterfly Valley and Kabak, below Faralya
Past Ölüdeniz the coast turns to cliff. Butterfly Valley is a steep valley ending in a beach, reached by boat from Ölüdeniz or down a steep path from Faralya village. Kabak Bay lies below Faralya as well, on the Lycian Way, a wide arc of sand and smooth pebbles with camps up the hillside. On either, the path down counts as part of the ground.
Patara, where the shore opens right out
At Patara the sand runs long and open, which is a different problem from a cove. The Lycian Way passes close by, so some people come to it on foot from inland rather than off a hotel terrace, and that changes where they put their things down.
Kalkan and Kaputaş on the road east
Kalkan sits west of Kaş, its harbour on the water and its streets behind. Kaputaş lies between the two towns on that road, reached down a long flight of steps, with a facility run by Kaş council on the sand.
Kaş, its beaches and the water east of it
The district writes up Akçagerme, a public beach on the Bucak sea west of the centre where the water stays flat even in wind and swell, and Büyükçakıl, which is pebble and reached by following the road towards the hotels. East of the town the ministry describes indented coves where land access is limited, with boats doing much of the carrying.
What happens to a message once you send it
The matching up happens at this end
Once your message lands, the work of finding somebody who can actually reach that cove or that stretch of sand is ours rather than yours. You deal with one person in English from the first line to the last.
Whatever you send goes on as it is
Maps, screenshots, voice notes and photographs reach whoever searches in the state you wrote them. Nothing is condensed or rephrased at this end first.
Difficult is said out loud
If your loss looks like hard going, that comes near the start of the reply rather than the end. You should not have to read between the lines to find out where you stand.
Nothing is arranged until you say so
Write in and you have agreed to nothing. The reply puts a cost in writing beside what a search there would involve, and the decision is then yours in your own time.
What changes from one of these places to the next
Underfoot, and how you got there in the first place.
Sand, pebble and rock all turn up here
Patara opens right out into sand. Büyükçakıl at Kaş is pebble, and the district makes the point that the pebbles leave the water looking clearer. Elsewhere it is cove and rock. Tell us what you were standing on and you will already have ruled several of these places in or out.
Boats do a lot of the work east of Kaş
The ministry calls that coast a run of indented coves where land access is limited, so Limanağzı, Üçağız and Kale, and the bays around Kekova, the largest island out there, are often seen from the water. If a day boat took you, tell us which boat and where it set out from.
The lagoon is not the same water as the bay
Fethiye district describes Ölüdeniz as standing motionless, its bed white sand without a single weed on it, and the light off that sand as what gives the water its colour. Belcekız, the open bay you walk in along, is a different thing entirely. Which of the two you were in is worth saying early.
Questions about Fethiye, Ölüdeniz, Göcek, Kalkan and Kaş
The watch came off my wrist in the Ölüdeniz lagoon.
Say how far in you had waded and which end of that water you were at. The lagoon is the still piece behind the spit, and Fethiye district describes its bed as white sand with not one weed on it. Belcekız, the bay you walk in along, is a separate search.
A chain went missing somewhere between the Göcek berths and the boat.
Göcek bay was a working harbour with a market on it long before the yachts came, and the shape of the place still funnels everything towards the water. The berth you left from and the one you tied up at are worth writing down first. Should the chain have gone into the bay itself, that is a long shot, and you would hear that from us first.
Is Patara too big to bother with?
Not too big, but it needs cutting down. The path you came in on is the one thing almost everybody can find again, so work outwards from that. How far along you walked, and whether you settled up on the dry sand or down near the water.
The ring is somewhere at Kaputaş and we only stopped for an hour.
An hour helps rather than hurts, because a short stop keeps you near where you came down. Kaputaş lies on the road west of Kaş, with a long flight of steps down to the sand and a facility run by Kaş council on it. Where you put your things in relation to the bottom of those steps is the question.
Which of the Kaş beaches were we actually on?
Start with what it felt like underfoot. Akçagerme is the public one on the Bucak sea west of the centre, and the district says its water stays flat even when the wind is up. Büyükçakıl is the pebble one, reached by following the road towards the hotels. Flat water, or pebbles underfoot, usually settles which was which.
My phone went in off the rocks at Limanağzı.
If you went across by boat from Kaş harbour, that already gives us both ends of the day. What we need next is which of the coves you were in, and the route you took from the landing down to the water.
An earring came off on the Çalış front.
Worth trying, because the front is a defined strip and you can walk it again yourself before anyone else does. Çalış sits just north of Fethiye town, so tell us which end you came in from and what you were standing beside when you noticed.
We lost it at Kalkan and cannot say much beyond the harbour.
The harbour is a real fixed point, and it is the thing most people can place themselves against. Say whether the afternoon went on the water, along the front, or up in the streets behind it. The ground shrinks quickly from there.
Fethiye, Ölüdeniz, Göcek, Kalkan and Kaş
Start with where you got into the water
One message, in English, whenever suits you.
WhatsApp suits this better than email, and a rough first message is enough. Half remembered is still worth sending, and you can put it right later. What comes back is an honest reading of where you have put us, along with the cost of a search there.