Muiderberg

The winds

Where you can kitesurf at Muiderberg

The village of Muiderberg lies in the municipality of Gooise Meren, on the south shore of the IJmeer, the part of the Markermeer between Amsterdam and Almere. A dike with a footpath on top runs along its shore. In front of the village are two swimming beaches with a small marina for open sailing boats between them.

Muiderberg's kite spot is a buoyed zone just west of the western swimming beach, off the dike by Kerk aan Zee, the village's 15th-century church. Four yellow buoys mark out a rectangle about 400 metres wide that reaches about 1.1 kilometres into the lake. Riders launch and land on grass by the water's edge, where there is little room.

Along the rest of Gooise Meren's shore, from the swimming beach east past the Hollandse Brug to the border with Huizen, kitesurfing is banned all year. West of the zone, towards Muiden, the shore is a sensitive area for water birds, and the channel into Muiden's harbour runs along the zone's outer edge.

Which wind directions work at Muiderberg

At the zone the shore faces north-north-east. Facing the lake, a north-westerly comes in cross-onshore from the left, a northerly blows almost straight in, a north-easterly comes in cross-onshore from the right, and an easterly blows almost along the shore from the right. A west-north-westerly runs along the shore from the left. Everything from east-south-east round through south to west blows off the land.

The NKV, the Dutch kitesurf association, lists north, north-west, north-east and east as the safe directions. A northerly or north-westerly crosses 8 to 10 kilometres of open water before it reaches the zone and is usually the steadiest. An easterly has crossed the Almere shore and the A6 bridge only about 2 kilometres upwind. A local watersports centre calls it gustier, and the NKV warns that the wind here can be very gusty.

KNMI's public hourly archive does not include its station at Muiden, 1.6 kilometres west of the zone, so we used two stations that bracket it: Schiphol airport, on land 22 kilometres west, and Houtribdijk, in open water on the dam across the Markermeer 40 kilometres north-east. From 2016 to 2025 the mean wind was about 9 knots at Schiphol and 14 knots at Houtribdijk, and the zone most likely sits between the two. At both, south-west and west were the most common directions for 12 knots or more, and at Schiphol about four in five of those hours came from a direction that blows offshore at Muiderberg.

Counting only daytime hours with 12 knots or more from a direction that works in the zone, Schiphol had about one in thirteen and Houtribdijk almost one in five. Both peaked in April, at about one in six and one in three, because in spring the wind comes from the north and east more often. Neither station is at the spot, so use these figures for direction and season more than for strength.

Muiderberg's kite zone rules

Gooise Meren's general bylaw, the APV, bans kitesurfing and kiting all year on the municipality's shore east of a line at the western end of Muiderberg's swimming beach. The current version has been in force since 1 January 2026, and the rule has read the same since 2016. Inside the banned area it is also an offence to have kite gear with you, so keep your gear off the swimming beach.

The bylaw keeps the marked swimming areas for swimming only from 1 June to 1 October, and the province's bathing season at Muiderberg runs from 1 May to 1 October. In summer a float line marks the swimming area off the western beach, about 50 metres out. Stay out of it. Rijkswaterstaat's profile of the beach describes a gap of at least 50 metres between the swimming area and the kite zone.

Under the national shipping rules, kitesurfing on Dutch inland waters is banned unless the water authority opens a stretch for it, and even there it is allowed only between sunrise and sunset. Muiderberg's zone also depends on the Natura 2000 management plan for the Markermeer and IJmeer. Diving ducks such as goldeneye, tufted duck and smew rest and feed within 700 metres of the zone, mostly in late summer and winter. The plan, adopted in 2018 and extended in 2024 until 2030, allows kitesurfing in the zone all year, on condition that riders stay inside it.

The plan also asked for a physical barrier in the water along the zone's western edge and an information board at the launch. Rijkswaterstaat's 2025 review found neither in place, so for now only the buoys mark the zone. The same review calls the legal position of kitefoiling unclear. If you ride a foil, check the signs at the spot or ask the NKV, whose volunteers look after it.

The water: depth, level, chop and weed

Rijkswaterstaat's 2022 depth survey puts the bottom in most of the zone at about 1.4 metres below NAP, the Dutch reference level. The lake is kept at about 20 centimetres below NAP in spring and summer and about 40 centimetres below it in winter, so the water in the zone is around 1.2 metres deep in summer and around a metre in winter. Spot guides say you can stand 200 to 300 metres out. Near the zone's outer end, more than a kilometre from the shore, the bottom drops into a dredged channel 5 to 10 metres deep.

With no tide, wind is what moves the water. At Rijkswaterstaat's gauge by the Hollandse Brug, strong winds from north to east-north-east raised the level by about 20 centimetres several times in the two years to October 2026, and south-westerly gales lowered it by up to half a metre. Waves on the Markermeer and IJmeer build within an hour of the wind rising: Rijkswaterstaat gives about 40 centimetres as normal and about 60 centimetres in strong wind. At Muiderberg that means a short chop rather than swell, smallest in an easterly and biggest in a northerly or north-westerly.

The bottom of the swimming area is sand. Further out the lake bed is mostly clay, with peat in places that can stain the water dark along the shore. The NKV advises shoes if you stand in the water a lot, because sharp mussels can cut your feet. In summer, water plants grow in the shallows and can slow you right down, and Rijkswaterstaat notes that a northerly wind pushes them into the swimming area.

A small launch, boats and getting help

The launch is small and can be busy. The NKV advises launching with the kite towards the water rather than towards the trees behind you, rolling your lines onto the bar when you take a break, and leaving your kite bag on the dike slope. A 2021 study of kitesurfing on the IJsselmeer lakes estimated use here at about 50 riders on average and up to 150 at peak.

The channel into Muiden runs along the zone's outer edge, and the main IJmeer fairway, used by commercial shipping, lies about 400 metres beyond it. Rijkswaterstaat estimates that 10 to 100 boats a day pass near the swimming area. Stay inside the buoys. In May 2020 an exhausted, cold surfer was picked up in the channel off Muiderberg.

In an easterly, the small artificial islands off the shore towards Muiden lie downwind. In October 2019 a missing kitesurfer was found on the western side of one of them, 't Hooft, after a search by two lifeboat crews and a coastguard helicopter. In May 2020, three kitesurfers off Muiden could not get back to shore, and yachts picked up two of them.

We found no lifeguard service listed for this beach. The KNRM lifeboat station at Huizen covers the water from the Gooimeer to Pampus. If you lose a kite or board, report it to the Coastguard centre on +31 88 958 4000, which also covers the IJsselmeer and the Markermeer. In an emergency, call 112 or the Coastguard on 0900 0111.

Water temperature, ice and water quality

Rijkswaterstaat measures the water temperature in the middle of the Markermeer and at the Schellingwouderbrug in Amsterdam. From 2019 to 2025 both averaged about 4 to 5 °C in January, the coldest month, about 10 to 11 °C in April and 20 to 21 °C in August, the warmest. The shallow water off Muiderberg probably warms and cools faster. April, the month when the wind works here most often, still calls for a 5/4 with boots. Add gloves and a hood in winter; from June to August a 3/2 is usually enough.

In cold winters the lake can freeze. In early March 2018 a thin layer of ice covered the IJmeer and the Markermeer, too thin to skate on. In February 2021 the KNRM switched to its ice-rescue procedure, because the frozen Markermeer was hard for lifeboats to reach. Keep off the ice.

Muiderberg is an official bathing site, and its water was rated excellent for 2021–2024. Rijkswaterstaat found no blue-green algae there from 2020 to 2024 and classes the site as not sensitive to it. In June 2026, after two dogs died following a swim on a nearby stretch of shore that is not a bathing site, warning signs went up on the beach as a precaution. Tests found no blue-green algae, and the signs came down within days. In summer, check zwemwater.nl for notices before you go.

Getting to Muiderberg from Amsterdam

Muiderberg is about 20 kilometres from central Amsterdam, around 25 minutes by car in light traffic. Take the A1 towards Amersfoort, then the A6 towards Almere, and leave at the first exit, Muiderberg. From Almere it is about 15 minutes over the Hollandse Brug, and from Hilversum about 20.

Parking is free: Gooise Meren's paid-parking rules for 2026 list streets only in Bussum, Naarden and Muiden. There is a car park by the church, next to the zone, and larger free car parks on the Dijkweg and the G.A. Heinzelaan, 200 to 350 metres away. The NKV warns that the car park by the water fills quickly and that parking along the road can get you a fine.

By public transport, take the train to Weesp and bus 110 towards Bussum. It runs hourly and reaches Muiderberg in about 25 minutes. From Amsterdam Amstel station, bus 320 runs to Muiden P+R, where you can change to the 110. From the Pieter de Hooghlaan stop it is about 900 metres' walk to the zone. By bike, Muiderberg is about 20 kilometres from Amsterdam Centraal.

Reading the live wind at Muiderberg

Check the direction first. North-west round to east works in the zone. Anything from east-south-east through south to west blows offshore, which means a day on the dike, however strong the wind.

Then compare the strength with the forecast for Muiderberg, and look at the gap between average and gust. A small gap usually means the wind has come across open water. A large one usually means it has crossed land first, as an easterly does here, or that a front is passing.

None of the stations in the widget stands on the water at Muiderberg, so use them for the direction and the trend more than for the exact strength in the zone. Late in the day, check the time of sunset too: the zone is open only in daylight.

The widget above shows the latest readings from the stations around the spot.

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