Kalkan Harbour, Turkey
Not to be used for navigation
DESCRIPTION
This is a small harbour in a town that was formerly Greek until the population exchange with Turkey in 1922. The town is an attractive jumble of new and old buildings mostly covered with bouganvillea. It is known for its selection of restaurants many of which are more stylish than is usual in this region with a better variety of cuisines than we are used to seeing in Turkey. If you have grown a little tired of the usual Turkish fare this is a town that might reignite your taste buds. In mid October 2008 the nightly rate for our 15m was YTL 60 (about $40). We felt this was expensive for a harbour offering only basic facilities (especially as it has no laid lines) as compared with recent Greek harbours that rarely charged more than the equivalent of $10 - $20.MOORING
The harbourmaster will direct you to a berth, most likely on the breakwater side of the harbour. This harbour is shared with Gulets, some of which are over 150' long. The harbour looks wuite wide in the photo above but pay close attention to the anchor chains of the larger moored boats as you work your way in, there is not a lot of room to maneouver with chains out on both sides of the harbour. Anchor out and stern tie. Try not to put out too much chain, to avoid catching it on the anchors of boats on the other side of the harbour.There is a large sign on the breakwater warning cruisers that pumping out toilets/holding tanks or even grey water containing detergent from showers/sinks is prohibited both in the harbour and in Kalkan bay and that fines will be imposed for any infraction. The coast guard keep a very nice fast patrol boat in this harbour. It is much newer and shinier than those we have seen elsewhere. I guess those fines helped pay for it!
FACILITIES ASHORE
The harbour offers showers and toilets. The showers cost YTL 5 per use, although the toilets are free.Kalkan is an example of succesful small-town renewal. After the Greeks moved out the Turks moved in, but they left and moved up the hill in the 1950's following an earthquake. What you see today in the lower harbourside town is 100" commercial space and about 80% of the businesses are restaurants. There are also a number of silver and jewelry stores with a larger and better selection of locally produced and antique items than we usually see in Turkish towns.
LAUNDRY: The harbour operates a small wash-and-fold laundry service in the building between the showers and the harbourmasters office. The charge is YTL 10 per load for wash, dry and fold.
WIFI: There are a number of cafes and bars offering wifi. The closest is the Indigo restaurant on the breakwater. Aubergine on the other side of the harbour is another. We did not use either as we were able to pick up a patchy but free wifi signal "dlink" on the boat with an external antenna.
UTILITIES: Electricity and water are available at an additional charge. We did not avail ourselves as we felt the harbour dues were too high.
GROCERY STORES: Several mini-marts in the village. I would expect that there is a decent supermarket probably in the upper town to serve the hundreds of new condos in the upper town, but we did not find it.