# Private gulet cruise: Kekova to Fethiye

> Eight days on a wooden schooner, along the coast day boats only sample.

https://ghostofkas.com/experiences/private-gulet-cruise-kekova-fethiye/

- Duration: 8 days / 7 nights
- Season: May – October

A gulet is a broad-beamed wooden two-master, a working boat design that turned into the Turkish holiday institution known as the blue cruise. You sleep in cabins below, eat on deck under an awning, and the day's schedule is a question rather than a timetable. Chartered privately, the whole boat is yours: your group, your crew, nobody else's swimming stops.

The Kekova–Fethiye run is the good half of this coastline. It starts over the sunken city, works west past Kaş and Kalkan, and reaches the bays around Gemiler — the island the Byzantines built a bishopric on, and which they also named after St Nicholas, closing a circle that starts in Demre at the other end of the route. Eight days is enough to stop moving: two nights in the same bay because it deserves it, a morning that turns out to be a swim rather than a passage.

The difference from a day boat is not the coastline, it is the hours. Day tours have to hand the bays back at five. A gulet is still anchored there when the light goes, when the water is flat and every other engine has gone home.

## Highlights

- The whole boat privately chartered — your group, no strangers
- Bays that day tours have to leave at five o'clock
- Gemiler island: Byzantine ruins and the other St Nicholas site on this coast
- Crewed and cooked for — gulets on this coast come with a skipper and a galley
- Sleeping at anchor, which is the part nobody forgets

## Questions people actually ask

### What exactly is a gulet?

A wooden two-masted motor-sailer, traditionally built in Bodrum and Bozburun, with cabins below deck and a large shaded deck above. They motor more than they sail — the sails are real but the schedule is not written by the wind.

### Is the boat shared with other people?

Not on a private charter. You take the whole vessel and its crew; cabin-by-cabin sharing is a different product entirely, and worth checking carefully when you compare prices, because the difference is exactly this.

### When is the season?

Roughly May to October. June and September are the sweet spot: warm water, manageable heat, and fewer boats competing for the same anchorage in the popular bays.

### Is eight days too long on a boat?

It is the length at which a blue cruise stops being a tour. Shorter charters spend their time in transit; eight days lets the boat sit still, which is the entire point of chartering one.

### Does it stop in Kaş?

The route runs directly past Kaş between Kekova and Kalkan, and harbour nights in town are usual on this itinerary — but stops on a private charter are agreed with the skipper, so ask rather than assume.

Check availability: https://www.viator.com/tours/Kas/Private-8-Day-Gulet-Cruise-from-Kekova-to-Fethiye-and-Back/d22558-469845P9

You complete your booking on the licensed operator's or agency's own channel. Prices shown are typical 2026-season starting prices with licensed operators.

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Türkçe: https://ghostofkas.com/tr/deneyimler/ozel-gulet-mavi-tur-kekova-fethiye/
Русский: https://ghostofkas.com/ru/ekskursii/arenda-guleta-kekova-fethiye/