A hop and skip from the mainland

If you take day trip on a Gulet out of Bodrum harbour, chances are your first port of call will be at Kara Ada Island, which you’ll also see referred to as Karaada and Kara Adası. (Translation: Black Island).

It’s only about 6km from Bodrum, and is the largest island off the Bodrum coast.  It’s famous for its healing mineral springs.

The boats pull up to the wooden jetty, and you can hop onto dry land for a quick drink or snack.  We sat on the upper balcony to the left of the jetty to savour our corn on the cob!  It was a great vantage point to look back at Bodrum, and appreciate the Aegean.

Mineral Springs

At the other end of the jetty is the mineral springs, the boats stay long enough to give you the opportunity to pay the fee and swim in the mineral springs.

A small portion of the springs is visible from the jetty, but there’s a gap in the rocky overhang, that gives you access to the mineral springs within the cave.  We watched a few folks enjoying the springs – but didn’t explore them ourselves.

Arkanessos Restaurant

Once back on-board our gulet, we sailed past the Arkanessos Restaurant — in ancient times, Kara Ada Island was known as Arkanessos (also Arconnesus).

It was late in the season when we sailed by the restaurant, and it looked pretty deserted – but there were a few signs of life, so I’m sure during peak season, this is a perfect location for enjoying a long luxurious lunch.

Or maybe they have taxi-boats ferrying diners out to this location to enjoy dinner?