The catch at Paradisus by Meliá Fuerteventura

A sandbar between 100 and 300 metres offshore holds back a tidal lagoon more than four kilometres long, and the hotel gardens lead down to it by a ramp and steps. It fills around the full and new moon, for a few hours around the daytime high tide, on about half the days of the year, and it is usually under a metre deep at its deepest. For the rest of the time the water at the gate is the open beach. The lagoon is also the teaching water of the René Egli windsurf and kite school, which holds the licence for lessons across all of it, so families share it with beginners on boards.

The hotel stands at the northern end of Sotavento, the nine-kilometre beach that the island's tourist board names as the windsurfing and kitesurfing beach of the Jandía peninsula. The windsurf centre in the hotel garden describes the spot as windy all year round: the north-east trade wind speeds up between two ridges, which makes it substantially stronger here than along the coast around it. That is why the boards are here, and it is also why the sand, the children's pool and the terraces can be windy, and why evenings on the terrace can turn cool.

Paradisus by Meliá Fuerteventura has no village around it, only ZEL next door. Costa Calma, the nearest town, is 47 minutes on foot or 6 minutes by car, and the Gorriones bus stop at the hotel turn-off has been suspended until further notice. The airport is a 64-minute drive. Everything beyond the beach is a drive too: Morro Jable 26 minutes, the start of the track to Cofete 28, Betancuria 48 and the Corralejo dunes 88. Within a 10-minute walk there is the hotel, the beach, the windsurf centre's beach bar and ZEL, and little else.

The Reserve is the adults-only part of the hotel, for guests aged 16 and over. Its rooms and suites are on the upper floors, and they come with their own lounge, private check-in and check-out, a private breakfast area and a pool of their own. Mahos, the signature restaurant, with a tasting menu built on local produce and traditional recipes, is adults only (16+) as well. A family books outside The Reserve and shares the main pools: the heated saltwater pool and the tropical pool, both shaped like lakes, and the children's pool with slides. Bali beds by the pools cost extra.

The hotel has 363 rooms and suites, and all-inclusive is the only board. Breakfast and dinner are buffets at Gastro Hall, at fixed hours: 7.30am to 10.30am, and 6.30pm to 9.30pm. Buffet dishes are sometimes served cold. The alternatives are the Italian trattoria Mascalzone, Lemon Fish Nikkei for ceviches, and Kanna by the pool at lunch. Rates are lowest in May, June and the autumn and highest at Christmas, New Year, in February and at Easter.