The Bodrum peninsula is not one place. It is perhaps a dozen bays that share a road, and the difference between them is the difference between a holiday you enjoyed and one you talk about for years afterwards.
Yalikavak has the marina and the shops and the crowd that comes with both, and in August it is loud in a way some people travel specifically to find. Turkbuku is where Istanbul goes, which means the season there runs on a social calendar rather than a weather one. Gumusluk is a fishing village where the tables are set in the shallows and the sun goes down behind a submerged island, and it is quiet enough that you can hear the water while you eat. Twenty minutes apart, and almost nothing in common.
The water is warm from June until the end of October, and the two edges of that range are the best of it. June before the peninsula fills, October when the light goes gold and the restaurants are still open but no longer full. August is the month everyone books and the month the roads cannot cope.
Most of the coast is best reached by boat, which is why a day on the water is not an excursion here so much as the sensible way to move. A gulet for a few days, or a fast boat for an afternoon, and the bays that are impossible by road become the easy ones.
We arrange the peninsula the way people who live on it do. Which bay, which week, which boat, and a table held somewhere that does not take reservations from strangers.
Choosing between the bays is the easy part. Getting the boat, the table and the timing to agree is what we are for.