Scuba diving in Mediterranean (Turkey)

Mediterranean Coast is located on the south of Turkey. The fauna of the Mediterranean Sea is very rich and varied and includes barracudas, stingrays, caretta-caretta turtles, moray eels, sea urchins, starfish, pink octopus, blennies, lilies, lagos fish, rays, pipefish, swordfish, and over 45 different species of sharks. The southern part of Turkey has a lot of interesting diving destinations including Kas, Kemer, Kalkan, Fethiye, Alanya, Mersin, Island Dana, Three Islands and others. The district of Kas - Kalkan - Kekova presents a great interest to fans who favor wreck, cave and canyon diving with some of the best dive sites in Turkey like Canyon, The Tunnel, Camel Reef, The Big Cave, Lighthouse and The Wall. There are also sunken ruins of ancient cities Aperlay, Kekov and Antifellos. Professional divers will probably find the waters of Kalkan more to their liking due to the strong flow and features of the underwater topography, while novice divers will appreciate calmer waters of Fethiye where there practically no fast undercurrents. One of the cleanest places near Fethiye is the Balaban island where the visibility reaches up to 40m/131ft. The island's underwater topography offers a natural shelter to numerous shrimp, crayfish, lobsters and moray eels which hide in many cracks and crevices of the rocky floor. Other popular dive sites include Cape Kurt and Cape Fok on the north-west of the Dana’s Island. The Island Kovanli Adassi is famous for archaeological divіng, coming here divers can spot lots of ancient amphorae, anchors and ship remains. The most famous wrecks with different levels of complexity include sunken Georgian ship named Pati, lying at the depth of 5-12m/16-39ft, and ship "Paris 2", lying at the depth of 21-31m/69-102ft, located near Kemer; near the city of Manavgat there is a submerged U.S. military aircraft «Hadley's Harem», Syrian wreck on Cape Uluburun (40-60m/131-197ft deep), aircraft Douglas DC-3б (22m/72ft deep) in Kas, French warship St. Didier (33m/108ft deep) and 14th century Gelidonya ship (27 m/89ft deep) in Antalya.

Mediterranean coast attracts divers with its mild climate that features long hot and dry summers and short cool and wet winters. Thanks to the warm water temperatures of the Mediterranean region diving can be done even in the deep of winter but the warmest period is considered from April to October. The average air temperature in the winter does not fall below 15C/59F, and in the summer it can climb up to 40C/104F.