Isla Holbox

Holbox is the last surprise of my Pan-American journey. In Belize, a Swiss man said: “The best wind in Mexico blows there!”. He was right. Every day 16 to 23 knots and beautiful waves along with ten kite buddies on Holbox will be my last kitesurfing paradise.

Until 2013, kitesurfing was completely banned on Holbox, which is largely a nature reserve. Today we are allowed to kite – for a €10 wind usage fee, and only on a single beach one and a half kilometres north-east of the town centre. The wind is almost always from the east, so the kite beach lies sideways in the lee of the island. The only option is to take the kite school boat seven kilometres around the corner of the island every day for €14.

The wind is favourable at Mosquito Beach. Turquoise blue water and mild waves in the middle of nowhere. The sun is blazing. No shade, no building, nothing to eat or drink. There’s no reason to go ashore, so I stay on the water for three and a half hours at full throttle on the very first day. In the evening, I briefly fall asleep during dinner and sneak off to bed at eight with a small case of tonsillitis.

Of the 40 kilometres by two kilometres of Isla Holbox, only five kilometres are built on. The hotels are small and beautiful, as is my hostel, Ida y Vuelta. Palm tree roofs, tree trunks, driftwood and shell shower heads create Caribbean dreams. The rest is secluded beaches and mangrove forests, most of which can only be reached by boat.

By bike, you can quickly reach the nearby nature reserve with pelicans, frigate birds, arrow-tailed crabs, iguanas and fish. In the clear shallow water of a lagoon crossing, I almost step on a stingray. It has no ambitions to celebrate its first ascent today. The gleaming white beaches soon become deserted. The wind rushes through the green mangrove forests.

Day three. Captain Pancho reports the number of boat occupants and destination to the harbour master by radio. He then asks them to put on their life jackets. In a country whose police hand over 35 protesting students directly to the execution squads of the drug cartels, I understand the longing for laws. Nevertheless, it is annoying that apparently only kitesurfers are considered extremists here and are massively restricted.

With laminar east-northeast winds, you can kite for a good kilometre on Mosquito Beach in the 20-metre-wide shorebreak and use massive waves as kickers. On the way back, one line is enough to make up for the height lost on the fly.

Like everywhere on the Caribbean side of Central America, there is seaweed floating in the water. Wet, it is easy to shake out of the lines. Dried and stiff on the beach, it becomes devilish Velcro, which can quickly divert a launch into the thorny bushes behind the narrow beach – or serve up a nasty line salad.

The wise old Canadian Peter has lived here for eleven years. He is the kitesurfing wind guru of Holbox. His information: From 10 a.m., the wind can blow from the north-east. If this is the case, you can go out on the kite beach behind the last hotel “Las Nubes” without a boat transfer. A sandbank here makes the water as smooth as glass. The wind fluctuates strongly up to the sandbank, but even behind it there is still flat water with five extra knots opposite Kitebeach. In the early afternoon, the wind usually shifts to the east, then nothing works here because of the wind cover provided by the island. From January to March, there are a few days of pure northerly wind in a row, so the spot must be a dream. From the end of March, the wind blows almost exclusively from the east.

I arrive too late that day. The wind spirits seem to want to point out to me that my abstinence at the end of the trip has reached almost monk-like proportions. After a brief dialogue, they convince me of the need to let Captain Morgan set sail again before the last Saturday night of my voyage. After his early exit thanks to the energetic help of a young US marine and two dear Swiss men, the young hostel manager David turns out to be the owner of the hostel and invites us to his beach party. The stars shine brightly in the new moon sky, but the glowing plankton was probably more of a beach fire reflection. I only drink water for the last three hours. The best party in the world is behind me.

The next day, the wind shifts to the south-east, 90° across the waves. The big airs finally come today with up to 23 knots. The boat doesn’t pick us up from the beach until seven o’clock in the evening. From the sun deck, I happily watch the sun sink into the sea.

On the last day, the wind is a bit stubborn at first, between 10 and 20 knots, before levelling off at 18. A local’s Labrador seal chases after his kiting master on the beach and provides plenty of fun. Holbox increased the kite days on my Panamericana to 25 out of 75.

After six days on Holbox, I barely make it up the stairs to the upper deck of the ferry to the mainland at sunrise. Despite little kiting and no climbing at all, my knee is worse than ever.