Kitesurfing in Puck Bay

The Hel peninsula shelters a lagoon that is warm, flat and standing-depth for hundreds of metres, which is exactly what you want when you are first being dragged along by a kite.

Chałupy and Jastarnia are lined with schools and the whole coast turns into a kite scene from May. Four days is enough to be riding on your own, badly, which is the part everyone remembers.

The Hel peninsula shelters a lagoon that is warm, flat and standing-depth for hundreds of metres — exactly what you want when you are first being dragged along by a kite. Chałupy and Jastarnia are lined with schools, and the whole coast turns into a kite scene from May onward.

Four days is enough to be riding on your own, badly, which is the part everyone remembers. The catch is the usual one: it depends entirely on wind, the popular spots get crowded, and the Baltic is colder than it looks, so a wetsuit is wanted outside high summer.

Spring and autumn bring the strongest, most reliable wind.

Base at Chałupy or Jastarnia and book a school that reschedules for no-wind days — then build slack into the trip, because you cannot order wind to arrive on a Saturday.

Go between May and September; spring and autumn give the strongest wind but colder water, so bring or rent a wetsuit outside high summer. Beginners need nothing but the lessons; the flat, waist-deep lagoon is forgiving enough to learn on. Four days is a sensible minimum to get riding independently.

Reserve gear and lessons ahead in the July–August peak, when the popular spots and their water get busy.