Diving in Turkish Waters

The waters between Fethiye and Oludeniz provide for excellent diving conditions, all year round.  There are no tides or currents to worry about, making it a safe environment in which to learn and practice. The most pleasant time is naturally in the summer with water temperatures reaching 28 degrees.  Diving is still possible in the winter for the real hard core, but as the temps drop to around 18 degrees, a good thick wetsuit is essential!

The turquoise water is always clear, providing visibility of 30-40 meters.

The spectacular cliffs and craggy coastline means that there are a great many under water caves, tunnels and caverns to discover, as well as reef life.  You can expect to see octopus, cuttlefish, jacks, and barracuda.  Fethiye is famous for it's sea horses.

If you're lucky, and depending on the time of year, you may also see rays, turtles an dolphins.

Legal Issues

Because Turkish waters contain underwater artefacts from ancient ship wrecks etc, it is the law that anyone who dives must be accompanied by a Turkish Dive Guide to ensure that there is no theft.  The coast guard do check from time to time.  It is also bad form to spear fish at night, as it not considered cricket to shoot fish when they are half asleep!

First Timers

A good introduction to see if diving is for you is to go out with one of the many diving companies and do a try dive.  If you like it you can then convert this as the start of your 3 day open water diving certificate.  Make sure the company you choose is PADI registered.

The safe waters mean that you can learn from day 1 in the sea, rather than having to use a swimming pool, so you get used to sea conditions and there is still much to see while in the shallow waters.

Learning to dive

The first step to becoming a fully fledged diver, is to get your PADI open water certificate.  This usually takes about 3 days, and involves both examination and performance of underwater skills.

The PADI course provides an easy to follow book which ensures that you are fully prepared for the multi choice tests in bite sized chunks. And there is also a video which your instructors will show you which again is very clear.

Experienced Diving

Once you've got your open water certificate you can dive anywhere in the world.  There are lots of other more specialist courses you can also do, eg Adventure diver, Rescue diver etc.  Here in Fethiye you will be able to find a company who can hire you all the equipment you will need, and take you to different sites to explore the interesting topography around the coastline.

There are many diving companies to choose from in Fethiye.