Sunsail Life

This is what the Sunsail Phokaia resort looks like from the jetty where they moor the day yachts. To the left is the sailing beach and to the right the swimming beach (with sea urchins so watch out). Directly ahead is the bar and one of our favourite things was to sit there in the evening over alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails and play a couple of hands of Hearts before dinner.

I was pretty impressed - it was large, brand new and seemed well thought out. Further back there was a long and very warm swimming pool, usually full of younger children playing and surrounded by parents with holiday books. We noticed that between the pool and the bar there were half a dozen different paths twisting amongst trees, none of which were a straight line. It helped reduce the artificial nature of the resort.

For let's be clear, this isn't the place you go if you want to experience the "real" Turkey. There was none of the learn the language and sit on rickety buses next to farmers with live chickens on their lap sort of moment.

This was a place where almost everyone was British and middle class and it was totally focussed on families, full of professional parents and their teenage or younger children. There were no singles there, so no romance for the non-teens.

Its mission was to provide activities to keep British middle class families busy - you can get the full list of boats and stuff at their site here. Being a large site meant there were lots of staff and usually lots of choice of boats.

You could always get a Topper if you wanted one - see their racks below:


It was slightly harder to get other boats - the Hobies were very popular in the heat and light winds and so sometimes had a waiting list and 1 hour max time limit. We also occasionally had to wait if we wanted three lasers at once.

Similarly for day yachts - there was heavy demand and so a draw was made as to who got to choose their slot for the week:

The food was good though by the end of the week slightly predictable. But somethings were always nice, like the sunsets each evening over the bay.


Would I recommend it? Yes definitely: it was a good sailing base and we learnt a lot in the lessons and the tutorials. But be aware it's a family resort - singles might feel out of place.