The body of a 45-year-old man who went missing from a rented tour boat off Kekova Bay in Demre, a district of Antalya province, has been recovered after a four-day search by the Turkish Coast Guard, the agency İHA reported on Friday.
The man, a married father of two from Istanbul, had come to Antalya on holiday with friends. The group had rented a boat in Demre for a three-day tour of the coast and reached Kekova Bay on the evening of 17 October, according to the report.
Last seen on deck at night
After his friends went to sleep, the man stayed on deck, reportedly saying he wanted to fish. When the others woke the next morning, he was nowhere to be found, and they alerted the 112 emergency call centre.
Coast guard teams were sent to the boat’s location and searched the waters around the bay for four days before finding his body in the sea. It was taken on board a coast guard vessel and brought ashore, then transferred to the Antalya Forensic Medicine Institute for an autopsy. After the autopsy and procedures by the prosecutor’s office, relatives took the body to Istanbul for burial. The cause of death had not been announced.
A popular boating area
Kekova, between Demre and Kaş, is one of the most visited boating areas on Türkiye’s Mediterranean coast. Day trips and multi-day private charters take visitors past the partly submerged ruins of the ancient Lycian town of Simena and the "sunken city" on Kekova island, and many boats anchor overnight in its sheltered coves. The season normally runs well into autumn, when the sea is still warm.
The incident is separate from the search for a German hiker who went missing on the Lycian Way between Kaş and Demre earlier this week.
Boat operators and the coast guard regularly remind visitors to wear life jackets, avoid going on deck alone at night and stay away from the rails after drinking. In an emergency at sea in Türkiye, the coast guard can be reached through the single emergency number 112, or directly on 158.
Antalya has drawn large numbers of visitors this year, as shown in our report on foreign arrivals in the first nine months, and coastal tourism is continuing into the autumn, as seen in the late-season hotel figures on the Aegean. For readers thinking of settling in the area, our guide to living in Kaş and Kalkan covers the nearby coast.
Sources
- Demre’de tekneden kaybolan 45 yaşındaki adamın bedenine 4 gün sonra ulaşıldı (Son Dakika / İHA)
- Demre’de tekne turunda kaybolan 45 yaşındaki adamın cansız bedeni 4 gün sonra bulundu (Haberler.com)
Photo: Seval Torun / Unsplash License, via Unsplash
