Kijkduin — Zandmotor15h · 17 kt
81GOKitesurfing atKijkduin
NetherlandsPick your slot
Min. level
Beginner
Optimal wind
14-30 kts
Season
April to October
Live · now
What to check
Tide-sensitive, and here the tide decides everything (North Sea, Scheveningen reference station). The lagoon is connected to the sea: it fills at high tide, which is when it's rideable, and a large part of it dries out at low tide. Time your session on the flood or at high water, otherwise you'll be walking. Outside the lagoon, the current runs along the coast as it does everywhere here.
Discover the spot
The spot
Discover Kijkduin
In 2011, 21.5 million cubic metres of sand were dumped off Kijkduin to feed the coast. Behind that man-made peninsula a shallow lagoon has formed, sheltered from the shorebreak: the most sought-after learning ground on the South Holland coast.
The Zandmotor isn't a natural spot, it's a coastal-engineering experiment that turned into a body of water. The idea: dump a huge amount of sand in one go and let wind, waves and current spread it along the coast, instead of renourishing the beaches every couple of years. Fifteen years on, the peninsula has stretched north and south, birds and seals have moved in, and a lagoon has formed behind it. That lagoon is what interests kiters: flat, shallow water, no shorebreak, and room to lay out a kite on bare sand. It lives with the tide — it fills at high water and much of it dries out at low — and it is small: ten or so kiters and it's full. All around is the open North Sea, with its waves, its current and its groynes. Two playing fields in one place, a few hundred metres of sand apart.
Who & when
Level and best time
Who it's for
Beginner in the lagoon, at high tide and with room: flat, shallow water, no shorebreak, and a school teaching on site. Step outside the lagoon and you're in the open North Sea, with waves, current and groynes — a completely different spot, for self-reliant riders. The Dutch federation rates the place from beginner to advanced and warns that both levels mix here: right-of-way rules count double.
source : kitesurfvereniging.nl ↗Best time
Working directions run from north-east round to south-west, through north and west. Aim for high tide: that's when the lagoon is full and rideable, whereas at low water much of it dries out. Outside the beach season, 15 September to 15 May, the place is markedly freer — and the flat water doesn't care about the calendar.
source : 35knots.com ↗On site
Arrival guide
Access & parking
Two ways in. From the south, the Molenslag car park in Monster: paid from 1 April to 30 September, between 08:00 and 21:00, first two hours free, then €1 per half hour in the shoulder season (€8 a day) and €2 from 1 June to 31 August (€12 a day). Free spaces exist in the surrounding streets. From the north, start at Kijkduin and walk 2.7 km along the beach. The Zandmotor itself has no road and no car park: you arrive on foot, gear on your back.
source : gemeentewestland.nl ↗Eat, drink, rinse off
On the Zandmotor itself, nothing: no beach bar, no shower, no running water — it's bare sand, and that's what keeps it quiet. Supplies are at either end: to the north Kijkduin beach, its pavilions and the kite school with changing rooms and showers; to the south the beaches of Monster and Ter Heijde.
source : kitesurfvereniging.nl ↗Where to launch
The site operator has fixed two locations around the Zandmotor where kiters may enter the sea or come back ashore. The exact zoning belongs to the municipalities of The Hague and Westland, and the signs at the beach entrance are the authority. If in doubt, the school based at Kijkduin knows where people are launching that day.
source : dezandmotor.nl ↗Before you go
Safety
The beach-season rule
The site operator states it plainly: kiting is allowed from 15 May to 15 September, provided you stay 150 metres off the waterline and launch from one of the two designated spots. The detailed zoning is settled with the municipalities of The Hague and Westland — the Zandmotor straddles both, and the signs don't say the same thing at the north and south ends.
source : dezandmotor.nl ↗The lagoon lives with the tide
The lagoon is connected to the sea: it grows and shrinks with the flow. At high tide it's full and rideable; at low tide a good part of it dries out and you end up walking. Black and yellow cardinal buoys ring the Zandmotor to mark the shallows — they're there for shipping, but they also tell you where the bottom comes up.
source : kitesurfvereniging.nl ↗Outside, it's the North Sea
The Dutch federation describes the outside of the Zandmotor in three words: shorebreak, current, groynes. The contrast with the lagoon is brutal and it catches beginners out — a few hundred metres separate flat water from an open sea where the current runs along the coast. Leaving the lagoon means changing spot, not changing zone.
source : kitesurfvereniging.nl ↗East wind: what the school says
Our geometric calibration derives the wind sectors from the coast's orientation, and it puts east on the wrong side. The school based here describes something else: inside the lagoon you can kite in almost any direction, east being mainly gusty because it comes down off the land. The public guides, for their part, only keep the north-east to south-west arc. Until that disagreement is settled, treat east as an offshore wind: gusty, and with no way back if you leave the lagoon.
source : kiteboardschool.nl ↗Community
Soon, by the riders
These spaces will fill up with the community’s feedback.
Is the lagoon full today?
Which launch zones are open this summer?