Support our Friends in Orhaniye

[Norman_E]

The Authorities have been around this year and destroyed a lot of the restaurant jetties in Orhaniye. The Palmiye Hotel still has its jetty but Cennet Marine and Buk Restaurant have both had theirs drastically reduced.
Saddest of all is Ersoy restaurant which is a father and son family business that used to have capacity for 7 or 8 boats. Their jetty is now chopped down so that they can only take three boats. Salih and Mustafa are two lovely people and the damage to their business must be enormous. They still have electricity though the connection point is not easily visible as you approach. I was there the last two nights and the food is still great and when we left Salih gave us fresh fruit from his trees.
If you are in Orhaniye please support them, they are still open for business despite what has happened.

 

[mjcoon]

I didn't know this sort of thing was still going on. We saw it years ago. We went to the restaurant in the morning for breakfast as one does, only to find a squad smashing up all cooking facilities. Partly armed soldiers, partly workmen. They didn't like us taking photos! Don't remember if there was a jetty but if so it was not touched. Most Turkish jetties, decades ago, barely held together anyway...

Mike.

 

[langstonelayabout]

Is there any reason why this happens in Turkey?

I've visited Orhaniye to do the walk at girl sands but what I did notice is that, as a regular Marmaris visitor, a restaurant on the seafront one year would have physically gone the next. I assumed that this was to attract investment (!) and create new builds in premium areas but it seems there must be other reasons for it...

 

[Irish Rover]

Terrible for the businesses concerned but it’s probably reasonable to assume that the facilities in question were illegally constructed without the necessary permissions and quite probably on public land. There’s been a big crackdown on illegal jetties in recent years and it has become increasingly difficult to get permits for jetties. As far as I know this has been taken out of the control of the local councils and you have to apply for permission to one of the Ministeries in Ankara. I doubt it will have come as a surprise to the owners concerned as they were most likely served with an enforcement notice and would have had an opportunity to appeal to the courts. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong but there would be plenty of people who would say individuals shouldn’t be allowed to grab a part of the public foreshore and convert it for their own commercial or private use.

 

[Champagne Murphy]

About 8-9 years ago we chartered out of Gocek, had a lovely time- all the small bars around the bay were great, but chatting to them and also the Brits who lived and worked out there it was apparent that a great many of them, or at least those outside the villages, were ‘squats’ with no legal basis at all. The general attitude then seemed to be mostly live and let live but every now and again the police would close them down and send the owner off for a little bit of gentle ‘bird’. Once they got out of the slammer the process would start again. It sounds as though they are having a bit of a crackdown at the moment. A bit hard on them but I guess its their laws.

 

[Norman_E]

I take Irish Rover's point about public foreshore but here there are no tides and effectively no foreshore, and private land extends to the water's edge with no public access. If what I hear about demands for very large sums of money to reinstate jetties is correct then this is little more than extortion.

Ministries could be involved as there is an ongoing situation in various of the Gocek bays where the Forestry Ministry attempted to sell 29 year leases of the land around four bays. Local opposition and a legal challenge stopped it but the ministry then attempted to sell 10 year leases. That was also challenged but the saga is not yet over. If the land is leased we can expect the bay restaurants to disappear and either hotels of private villas to be put up, possibly resulting in yachts being forbidden to enter, as has already happened in practice in one bay further north west.

 

[[29051]]

We were in one of the Gocek bays one morning when a small private yacht arrived under power, and two men in suits got out with what looked like their minders. They went up to the restaurant and sat with the owners in private for a while then left as quickly as they came. All the staff were very nervous and would not say who they were or what they came for. It looked very unlike an official visit and very like extortion. We had heard many times of the 'taxes' that have to be paid for running these restaurants.

The village jetty in kalboshi was also removed a few years ago. Allegedly some of the restaurants in the village were unhappy that most visiting yachts went to Ogun's Place. We usually anchor off in the bay there but visited in a friend's yacht after the jetty had gone. He wanted to have a line ashore, and Ogun tied one to a tree on his land. Within an hour someone had called the coastguard and a long argument ensued. They picked someone up off the beach to translate for them, presumably the complainant. They threatened a fine for tying to a tree (the shore line was cutting across the beach and I don't blame them for complaining). There is obviously a lot of bad feeling in some places where one restaurant is making a lot more money than the others from yachts.

It's sad to hear about Orhaniye. Lovely people there who have always treated us with generosity. We understood that only the Palmiye had a licence, but they are more like a marina now than just a restaurant with a quay.

 

[Seajet]

Then eventually even corrupt governments learn by loss of revenue.

 

[savageseadog]

Corruption in Turkey? Whatever next?

 

[Norman_E]

Sandydog, As far as I know the Palmiye has a licence to act as a marina, i.e. they can take boats that are left unoccupied, and charge for it. There are charter boats based there. That is quite different from having a restaurant jetty where the only boats are occupied overnight by restaurant customers, and not left there.

Whatever the legalities it must be bad for Turkey's tourist trade to remove such jetties, resulting in visiting boats staying at anchor with crew eating aboard, and ultimately less visiting boats. I am currently seeing places that are normally full of boats with very few, as several charter companies seem to have left, and there are few flotillas now.

 

[Irish Rover]

In reality, in the scale of things, visiting yachts contribute little to the local economy. Hotels are where the revenue is at and it’s hardly surprising the Government is trying to encourage investment by making land available in scenic, desirable areas. Going forward more and more bays will be roped off and yachts will be pushed towards overnighting in marinas. That’s the price of progress, folks.

 

[Resolution]

We were sad to find this year that the jetties in Cokertme, Gokova Korfezi, have mostly been removed under official orders. Captain Ibrahim's very fine jetty and dining area is demolished.
However across the gulf at Okluk (English Harbour) the two excellent restaurants still have their jetties in use, despite this being within sight of the President's new 300 room country cottage. Last month a ship was unloading TONS of sand to make a better beach.

 

[Popeye & Olive]

Edit: deleted. mix up between Cokertme and Koraga.

 

[Norman_E]

We were sad to find this year that the jetties in Cokertme, Gokova Korfezi, have mostly been removed under official orders. Captain Ibrahim's very fine jetty and dining area is demolished.
However across the gulf at Okluk (English Harbour) the two excellent restaurants still have their jetties in use, despite this being within sight of the President's new 300 room country cottage. Last month a ship was unloading TONS of sand to make a better beach.

Have the jetties of the other restaurants in Cokertme (Orhan & Rose Mary) also gone? Aside from Mazi, the Cokertme restaurant jetties were the first ports of call in a trip round Knidos and up to English Harbour and Karasogut.