Kekova Island Boat / Guide

Kekova sunken city: what you actually see

Updated 4 September 2026 · 3 min read

The sunken city is not a city under the water. That surprises most people on their first trip, so it is worth saying plainly: what survives is the edge of a Lycian settlement that slid into the sea after earthquakes in the 2nd century AD. Foundations, staircases cut into rock, storage jars, part of a harbour wall. Some of it is a metre down, some of it is still above the waterline on the shore of Kekova island.

You see it from the boat, through water that is clear enough to read the stonework on a calm morning. You do not see columns and temples. Anyone selling you that is selling a different place.

What is actually down there

Staircases	Cut straight into the rock, running down into the water and stopping. The clearest single thing you will see.
Foundations	House walls at the waterline, roughly a metre high, following the old shore.
Harbour wall	A worked stone line under the surface, visible when the sea is flat.
Storage jars	Broken pithoi set into the ground, in places along the north shore.

Why you cannot swim or dive there

Swimming and diving over the sunken city are banned. The strait is a protected archaeological site, and the ban is enforced — the coastguard patrols it. Boats pass slowly, and that is the whole of the permitted experience.

This is not a rule your captain invented to save time. It is why the site is still there to look at. Swimming happens elsewhere on the route, in Aquarium Bay, where the water is just as clear and nothing is protected.

The light matters more than the season

Water clarity depends on the sun angle and the wind, not the month. Two things decide whether you see the stonework or a reflection of the sky:

• Mid-morning to early afternoon. The sun is high enough to light the bottom instead of bouncing off the surface.
• A calm sea. Wind chop scatters the light. Inside the strait the water is sheltered, which is why it is usually flat when the open sea is not.

Polarised sunglasses cut the surface glare and genuinely help. So does sitting on the shaded side of the deck, looking into the water rather than across it.

Which side of the boat

Coming out of Üçağız the boat runs along the north shore of Kekova island with the ruins to starboard — the right-hand side facing forward. On the way back the same shore is on your left. You do not need to fight for a seat; the boat slows to a crawl along the whole stretch and turns so both sides get the view.

What is next to it

The sunken city takes about twenty minutes of a tour. The stops around it are what fill the day: Simena castle village across the strait, where a Byzantine castle sits above a village with no cars and a beach of Lycian sarcophagi standing in the shallows; the rock tombs at Kaleköy; and Aquarium Bay for swimming.