Wreck treks: Yenibatik

One of the artificial reef of the Turkish Riviera is a small patrol boat near Alanya.

It's quite typical to sink boats as diving attractions, this small boat lies near Alanya. The locals call this artificial reef simply New Wreck or Yenibatik in Turkish. Not the most exciting wreck I've ever seen but it's easy to dive - unless you have some problems equalizing.

We booked our daytrip in Alanya but the extremely cold A/C of our hotel room caused some problems. The first dive from the spacious boat was OK, the really warm water in August was nicer than I expected. We saw some octopus and crabs but I felt my ears didn't work perfectly. Our next dive site was the wreck where we needed to descend directly to 20 meters from the surface. My buddy and me weren't able to go down so the group left us behind. When they came back (their bottom time wasn't too long), our dive leader, a very experienced former navy diver with some pressing movements around my ears made me to equalize. So we descended and I spent a few minutes near the wreck.

The maximum depth was around 30 meters. The boat was a former patrol boat which was in nice condition and we could penetrate. There were some artificial amphoras around as well. I didn't see too much life except when a shoal of barracuda swam near the wreck. We finished the dive but for the next few days I had to forgot every dive because of my ears. Anyway, I dived this artificial reef and I learned they try to attract more divers even to Turkey. Alanya is a typical holiday destinations but it seems even there they expect more and more underwater explorers. This small and not too special wreck is just enough if somebody plan a nice and relaxing day in the sea during a family holiday but those who want really stunning wreck diving adventures will choose another dive destinations. Even Turkey has more interesting spots, for example in the Bodrum area where they sunk a C47 Dakota airplane.