beach

Mexico – 10th December 2025

Travel

Despite the bedtime mescals I slept well, and was up and out for a run first thing, then swung by the hotel to pick up Arnaud for a walk along the quiet beaches to the west of us.

He kindly demonstrated why my white shoes are a bad idea, taking one for the team!

Quick shower then breakfast. I’ve packed my kit in the hope that the wind keeps building. Forever optimistic…

We get to our new morning spot about 5 minutes before I pass out from hunger. Wow what a feast, best breakfast yet. I have chilaquiles, Arnaud enmoladas, both with red mole sauce (the chocolate, nuts and chilli one, not the powdered tunnel dweller type).

That should set us up nicely for a few hours…they just messaged, we are a go for 2pm!

Grabbing a iced takeaway coffees from a very nice looking cafe, we set off to see Jonny & Cathy, just as well these bikes don’t have brakes or gears, and that there are no cars here.

“It’s borderline, but we’re going to take all the kit down to kite beach for 2pm, tomorrow looks much better, but we’re going to give it a go”. That’s all we need to hear.

We’re all smiles until we find that our favourite spot in the nice beach bar has a view of Tommy and his gang of walnuts. Oh well. Midday arrives, bringing diet cokes for a change, we’re taking this all very seriously.

Arnaud can’t sit still, even more fidgety than usual, pacing up and down to the beach. I see him rubbing his hands and smiling, “someone is out!”, this bodes well.

I’ve got a nice looking board and foil, and a 6 meter wing, the 7 meter that I really need for this light wind has been reserved for a lesson. It’s all good, I’m desperate to get out on the water. Arnaud is looking doubtfully at someone pumping up a 17 meter kite, it doesn’t even fit on the tiny sliver of beach. There hasn’t been wind for days and everyone is just crazy keen to do something, there is a real sense of excitement, everyone is smiling and chatting.

I head out and to be totally honest, there is a lot of bobbing around waiting for a stronger gust, but I’m happy, the sea is warm, I can see huge kites swooping around me, finally properly out on the water!

At the end of one long run, where I’m almost uncomfortably far from the shore, I see what looks like a head appear from the water ahead of me. My first thought is that someone swimming is in trouble, there is a really strong current here, swirling around the sandbanks. It pops up again, but I can’t get a proper look to decide whether to get help or not. 

I’m contemplating the situation when a large scaly head appears about 10 meters ahead and fixes one Inquisitive eye on me, then slowly sinks into the blue green sea. It’s a turtle! Cathy told me to keep an eye out for them but I didn’t believe her. Wow!

We stay out about as long as we possibly can, it gets dark at 6, and nobody wants to pack up in the dark.

Fist bumps all round, we’re all windswept, slightly pink and grinning our faces off. Happy Happy.

We make it to the closest place that sells beer just as the sun goes behind some clouds, that’s ok, the view is amazing and we have that delicious tired and achy feeling. Though there is a more pressing ache.

“Big fish?” I say, still looking at the view. “Big fish” I hear next to me. Done. It’s about a 2 mile cycle, and we weave around potholes and muddy puddles on our way back into town.

“Hola chicos!”

“Hola! Dos Pina colada por favor!”

Also, guacamole, tuna tostados, shrimp ceviche in a red chilli sauce, fried fish (I forget what kind, but disconcertingly it has teeth), with salad, rice and warm tortillas. It’s a proper feast. We need more pina coladas half way through.

“Wow, I needed that”, “Mate, I am done!”, sleepy smiles.

The hotel seems a long way away, I hope Arnaud doesn’t fall in another puddle.

“We meet at 10 tomorrow if you’d like to join us?” The perfect message to get once we’re back, the weather models are still aligned and it looks like the wind Mel has been praying for is going to arrive. Either that, or the high pressure system that’s been hovering below North America is finally shunting the stubborn low out of our way, but I like to think it was Mel.

Mexico – 8th December 2025

Travel

Despite the melatonin tablets I was awake early, and (after dunking myself in suncream and mosquito spray) headed out for a run, didn’t have a route in mind, just thought I’d try and keep near the beach and see where I ended up.

Even at 8am it was crazy hot and humid, but a little breeze off the calm blue sea helped a bit. I nearly stepped on what I thought was a stingray, turns out it was a horseshoe crab. Apparently these scary looking creatures have been around for over 450 million years, that makes them older than the dinosaurs!

Keeping a close eye on where I was putting my feet I cracked on along the shoreline, ducking in through the mangrove forests when my way was blocked, studiously ignoring the naked bloke standing in the sea (thankfully quite far out). Two iguanas gave me a little heart attack when I disturbed their sunbathing around a corner, noisily scampering for safety. Lots of roads and paths were flooded, not sure if from rain or the super high tides (it’s a full moon), the whole island is pretty much at sea level, everything is built on stilts.

A pink flamingo just looked at me, completely not bothered by the sweaty white person jogging slowly past.

I was cooling down nicely in my air conditioned hotel room afterwards until there was a power cut, oh well, time for breakfast anywhere. Arnaud had a local spot in mind, obviously.

“What’s a homlet?”, for some reason I assume he knows everything because he can speak Spanish, I really have turned my brain off. “A very masculine egg dish”, fair enough.

I was tempted by the special cake, divorced eggs, and a side helping of champion eggs, but decided that I was just being silly, and went for huevos rancheros, a big cold jug of passion fruit juice and a black coffee. Delicious.

No bloody wind again, so we decamped to the Las Nubes hotel beach club, good internet, sun loungers, cold beers and a bit of shade. Could be worse.

It was 200 MXN for the sun loungers, and we had to spend at least 1,000 (about £40), confident that we’d easily get through that with some beers and snacks we settled down to get through some admin. As well as checking the wind forecast approximately every 5 seconds.

We were on our fourth beer when a cheeky looking racoon appeared in front of us, and set about helping himself to our neighbours lunch. No shame whatsoever, just sat up on his hind legs and started picking bits off the table. They gently shooed him away, so he went around the back and started to rummage through their bag. Proper beach entertainment!

Arnaud reminded me of a conversation we had with someone trying to sell us a kayak excursion yesterday.

“Three island tour? Mangrove kayak? Punta mosquito lunch trip?”

“No thanks, we’re here for kitesurfing, got any wind?”

“Kitesurfing? So expensive, you could have three of my tours for the price of one hour of that!”

“Naa, we’re ok, just need to wait for some wind”

“Waiting for wind, waiting for wind, you could spend your whole life waiting for wind, and then what? Where is your life? Nothing, just lying around waiting! You should go on a tour with me”

We’ve got the waiting process pretty well nailed I reckon, but we did start to think about booking something if the weather doesn’t sort itself out. In the meantime we went to find a different hire place, and see if they had any more local wind intel.

Johnny from the Holbox Kitesurfing school had windy.com and windguru.cz up on his monitor, the same pages we’d been glued to all afternoon, and we all went through everything together in great detail. “Thursday looks good at the moment, maybe tomorrow, possibly Wednesday too”, that’s the sort of upbeat information we wanted. He’s got plenty of kit as well, feeling bouyed by the good news it was time for an early supper, breakfast was a very long time ago.

Fish, ceviche and a grilled fillet, salad with rice, warm tortillas, squid with garlic, eye watering habanero sauce, couple of margaritas. Sitting at a counter watching people go by, this felt like a pretty dammed good way to round off the afternoon. Both feeling decidedly dozy now, so back to the hotel for a late siesta, maybe a nightcap on the rooftop bar later, although the huge black cloud slowly enveloping the island might call that off. Hope it brings some wind.