Körmen Adası

On 5 May we decided that it was time to move on from the marina at Kuşadasi. We were keeping a careful eye on the weather because the meltemi was set to blow up again in a few days but there was enough time to take a look at a few anchorages which had caught our eye. There was very little wind as we motored out of the marina at 1130am and set off to the northwest. Within a couple of hours the wind had built and we were sailing. Inevitably, though, the wind came directly from where we were trying to get to so we had to tack back and forth to make progress towards our destination. Nevertheless, it was as a very pleasant sail to the tip of the Doganbey peninsula about 20nm northwest from  Kuşadasi.

The small bay of Körmen Adası right on the tip of the Doganbey peninsula was were we dropped the anchor for the night. Three tripper boats had left just as we arrived so we had the bay to ourselves. The reason for coming here was that there are hot water springs around the edge of the bay so, as soon as we had safely anchored, we went for a swim. The northeast corner at the edge of the beach was definitely warm and rocks had been piled in an arc to make a natural hot-tub but the geothermal activity was obviously low during our visit because previous visitors have reported this hot spring as very hot.

The other area which we swam to was on the western side of the bay just to the left of the low point in the picture above. Here we found a small cave and as as we approached we could see streams of bubbles and the water shimmering with the heat rising from the seabed. We swam and waded around finding the hottest points. The fish obviously liked the heat too because there were large shoals of small fish darting around us. The only minor drama was that having floated about in the warm areas, swimming back to BV through the normal 20 degrees Celcius sea seemed a little chilly in comparision.

It was a very settled night and in the morning we timed our departure perfectly, pulling up our anchor as the three tripper boats arrived with music blaring.

Körmen Adası , Turkey