Bodrum Dive Sites: The Wrecks of Karaada and Orak Island
If you’re planning a dive in Bodrum, chances are Karaada will come up pretty quickly. Four of the five sites in this guide are around the island. The fifth is Orak Island, at the entrance to the Gulf of Gökova. Bodrum is also home to 14 dive centres registered with the Turkish Underwater Sports Federation (TSSF).
Karaada: Two wrecks sunk four days apart
The three artificial reefs off Karaada were all created by the Bodrum Underwater Association. Two went down just four days apart. The TCG 115 Coast Guard boat was sunk on 16 May 2007, followed by the TCG Pınar 1 tanker on 20 May. The C-47 Dakota joined them that same year. Bodrum’s wreck programme came together in a single season.
TCG Pınar 1
This water tanker entered service with the Turkish Navy in 1939. It’s 37 metres long and 7 metres wide, and it lies at a depth of 20–30 metres in Karaada’s Poyraz Limanı area. It was 68 years old when it was sunk, making it the oldest of Karaada’s three wrecks.
TCG 115 Coast Guard boat
The Turkish Coast Guard donated this boat to the Bodrum Underwater Association. It now lies level on the seabed at 20–30 metres. Turning retired Coast Guard vessels into artificial reefs is fairly common in Türkiye. You’ll find similar wrecks off Kaş, Fethiye, Çeşme and Didim.
C-47 Dakota
You’ll find the Dakota in Paçoz Bay. The wreck starts at 16 metres, but the aircraft split in two in 2010 and the tail section shifted down to 33 metres. So a single depth would only tell you half the story. It’s one of several submerged C-47s in Türkiye and is sometimes confused with the Dakota off Kaş, a separate wreck.
Amphora Wall and the two sides of Karaada
Amphora Wall is the only Karaada site in this guide without a wreck. It’s on the far side of the island, where the first reef starts at 16 metres. Look where the wall meets the sandy seabed and you can see fragments of amphorae. Barracuda, octopuses and gobies are common sightings.
There’s also diving in the bays of Paçoz, Poyraz, Kaçakçı and Alarga. One detail matters when you’re planning the day. The side facing Gökova drops to 32 metres, while the side facing Bodrum drops to 20 metres. Which side the boat heads to makes a real difference to the dive profile.
On our map, all four Karaada sites share one pin. The exact coordinates of the wrecks’ sinking locations haven’t been published, so the pin shows the island’s general location.
Orak Island: From 3 to 70 metres
Orak Island sits at the entrance to the Gulf of Gökova and has a very different underwater landscape from Karaada. The rock walls start at 3 metres and drop to 30 metres. A cave at 32–34 metres is lined with purple sponges. The features here are all natural.
Off the headland, the wall drops first to 25 metres, then to 65–70 metres. That deeper section is beyond recreational diving limits. It’s hard to give Orak Island a single difficulty rating. There are shallows you can see with a snorkel and a deep wall that calls for technical diving.
14 dive centres, the second-highest count in Muğla
Bodrum’s 14 TSSF-registered dive centres put it second in Muğla province, behind Fethiye with 16. Marmaris has 11, Ortaca has 3 and Datça has 2. Our Muğla diving page lists the centres by district and includes their registration numbers. If you’re weighing up a few places to dive, we’ve put together guides in the same format for Kaş and Fethiye.