Active Pursuits

The Beaches

The most popular beach in town is Playa Norte. The long stretch of beach extends around the northern tip of the island, to your left as you get off the boat. This is perhaps the world's best municipal beach -- a wide swath of fine white sand and calm, translucent, turquoise-blue water. The beach is easily reached on foot from the ferry and from all downtown hotels. Watersports equipment, beach umbrellas, and lounge chairs are available for rent. Areas in front of restaurants usually cost nothing if you use the restaurant as your headquarters for drinks and food, and the best of them have hammocks and swings from which to sip your piña coladas.

Garrafon Natural Reef Park is best known as a snorkeling area, but there is a nice stretch of beach on either side of the park. Playa Lancheros is on the Caribbean side of Laguna Makax. Local buses go to Lancheros, and then turn inland and return downtown. The beach at Playa Lancheros is nice, with a variety of casual restaurants.

Swimming

Wide Playa Norte is the best swimming beach, with Playa Lancheros second. There are no lifeguards on duty on Isla Mujeres, which does not use the system of water-safety flags employed in Cancún and Cozumel. The bay between Cancún and Isla Mujeres is calm, with warm, transparent waters ideal for swimming, snorkeling, and diving. The east side of the island facing the open Caribbean Sea is typically rougher with much stronger currents.

Snorkeling

By far the most popular place to snorkel is Garrafon Natural Reef Park (tel. 998/849-4748; www.garrafon.com). It lies at the southern end of the island, where you'll see numerous schools of colorful fish. The pricey but well-equipped park has two restaurant/bars, beach chairs, a swimming pool, kayaks, changing rooms, rental lockers, showers, a gift shop, and snack bars. Once a public national underwater park, Garrafon is now operated by a private company. Public facilities have been vastly improved, with new attractions and facilities added each year. Activities at the park include snorkeling and Snuba (a tankless version of scuba diving, when you descend while breathing through a long air tube), "Sea Trek," which allows you to explore the Caribbean seabed wearing a helmet with compressed air, crystal-clear canoes for viewing underwater life, and a zip-line that takes you over the water. On land, there are tanning decks, shaded hammocks, a 12m (40-ft.) climbing tower, and -- of course! -- a souvenir superstore. Several restaurants and snack bars are available. Admission for the Garrafon Discovery package (required for entry) includes sea transfer from Cancún, continental breakfast, open bar, lunch buffet, and snorkeling equipment for $65 (£36) for adults, $49 (£27) for children (American Express, MasterCard, and Visa are accepted). More-expensive packages that include swims with dolphins at Dolphin Discovery are available. The park is open daily from 9am to 5pm.

Also good for snorkeling is Manchones Reef, off the southeastern coast. The reef is just offshore and accessible by boat.

Another excellent location is around el faro (the lighthouse) in the Bahía de Mujeres at the southern tip of the island, where the water is about 2m (6 1/2 ft.) deep. Boatmen will take you for around $25 (£14) per person if you have your own snorkeling equipment or $30 (£17) if you use theirs.

Diving

Most of the dive shops on the island offer the same trips for the same prices: one-tank dives cost about $50 (£28), two-tank dives about $70. Bahía Dive Shop, Rueda Medina 166, across from the car-ferry dock (tel. 998/877-0340), is a full-service shop that offers dive equipment for sale or rent. The shop is open daily from 10am to 7pm, and accepts MasterCard and Visa. Another respected dive shop is Coral Scuba Center, at Matamoros 13A and Rueda Medina (tel. 998/877-0061 or -0763). It's open daily from 8am to 12:30pm and 4 to 10pm. Both offer 2-hour snorkeling trips for about $20 (£11).

Cuevas de los Tiburones (Caves of the Sleeping Sharks) is Isla's most renowned dive site -- but the name is slightly misleading, as shark sightings are rare these days. Two sites where you could traditionally see the sleeping shark are the Cuevas de Tiburones and La Punta, but the sharks have mostly been driven off, and a storm collapsed the arch featured in a Jacques Cousteau film showing them, but the caves survive. Other dive sites include a wreck 15km (9 1/3 miles) offshore; Banderas reef, between Isla Mujeres and Cancún, where there's always a strong current; Tabos reef on the eastern shore; and Manchones reef, 1km (a half-mile) off the southeastern tip of the island, where the water is 4.5 to 11m (15-36 ft.) deep. The Cross of the Bay is close to Manchones reef. A bronze cross, weighing 1 ton and standing 12m (40 ft.) high, was placed in the water between Manchones and Isla in 1994, as a memorial to those who have lost their lives at sea.

Fishing

To arrange a day of fishing, ask at the Sociedad Cooperativa Turística (the boatmen's cooperative), on Avenida Rueda Medina (tel. 998/877-1363), next to Mexico Divers and Las Brisas restaurant, or the travel agency mentioned in "A Visit to Isla Contoy," below. Four to six others can share the cost, which includes lunch and drinks. Captain Tony Martínez (tel. 998/877-0274) also arranges fishing trips aboard the Marinonis, with advanced reservations recommended. Year-round you'll find bonito, mackerel, kingfish, and amberjack. Sailfish and sharks (hammerhead, bull, nurse, lemon, and tiger) are in good supply in April and May. In winter, larger grouper and jewfish are prevalent. Four hours of fishing close to shore costs around $110 (£61); 8 hours farther out goes for $250 (£138). The cooperative is open Monday through Saturday from 8am to 1pm and 5 to 8pm, and Sunday from 7:30 to 10am and 6 to 8pm.

Yoga

Increasingly, Isla is becoming known as a great place to combine a relaxing beach vacation with yoga practice and instruction. The trend began at Hotel Na Balam (tel. 998/877-0279 or -0058; www.nabalam.com), which offers yoga classes under its large poolside palapa, complete with yoga mats and props. The classes, which begin at 9am Monday through Friday, are free to guests, $15 (£8.25) per class to visitors. Na Balam is also the site of frequent yoga instruction vacations featuring respected teachers and a more extensive practice schedule; the current schedule of yoga retreats is posted on their website. Local yoga culture extends down the island to Casa de los Sueños Resort and Zenter (tel. 998/877-0651; www.casadelossuenosresort.com), where yoga classes, as well as chi gong and Pilates, are regularly held.