Muğla

Muğla province wraps the south-western Aegean and Mediterranean corner of Turkey from the Bodrum peninsula in the north past Marmaris, Datça, Fethiye, and the Lycian coast east to the Antalya line. Bodrum sits across a narrow strait from the Greek island of Kos at the ancient Halicarnassus where Herodotus was born and where the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus stood as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The tide here is the small Mediterranean signal that the Aegean basin reflects across its long axis: mean range at the Bodrum harbour gauge is about 0.2 metres, with spring tides reaching close to 0.4 and neaps dropping near flat. The astronomical signal is genuinely tiny because the Mediterranean connects to the Atlantic only through the narrow Strait of Gibraltar and the Aegean is a partially enclosed sub-basin of an already weak tidal system. What matters more on a day-to-day basis is meteorological tide. The meltemi north wind that builds across the Aegean in summer funnels down between the Greek islands and the Turkish coast, dropping water level on lee shores and raising it on windward shores by 20 to 40 centimetres on sustained event days. The defining cultural feature is the gulet sailing tradition. The two-masted wooden gulets that the Bodrum boatyards have been building for centuries still launch from the Içmeler boatyards, and the multi-day Mavi Yolculuk (Blue Cruise) charter itineraries along the Datça peninsula, the Lycian coast east to Antalya, and the Greek Dodecanese run from Bodrum harbour through the entire summer season. Snorkelling in the Aquarium Bay coves, the working ferry to Kos and Datça, the Gümüşlük underwater Myndos ruins on the western tip, and the Fethiye paragliding launches at Babadağ all read the wider weather pattern more than the tide. The Turkish Office of Navigation, Hydrography and Oceanography publishes the authoritative tide tables.