Locksmith on Isla Mujeres

Arrival time: By ferry: allow 1.5 to 2 hours door to door.

Isla Mujeres is eight kilometres of island off Puerto Juárez, reached by a passenger ferry that runs on a timetable. That single fact makes it unlike anywhere else we work, and it is worth being honest about what it means: a technician cannot simply drive to you. He takes a boat.

Plan on an hour and a half to two hours door to door, and call as early as you can rather than as late as you can bear. If the last ferry has gone, the honest answer is that the job happens in the morning, and we will tell you that on the phone rather than taking the booking and letting you find out.

What we handle here is mostly vacation rentals and homes. The island has a very high proportion of short-let properties with metal keys and absent owners, so the pattern is familiar: a guest arrives late, the lockbox code is wrong or the key is not in it, and the host is in another time zone. If that is you, a booking confirmation with the address plus your passport is what we will ask for.

There is one category of work here that barely exists on the mainland: golf carts. They are the island's main form of transport, they are rented by the day, and their locks and ignitions are simple, exposed and constantly wet. Keys get lost in the sand, ignitions seize, and the rental company's spare is at an office that closed at six. Most cart ignitions can be repaired or replaced quickly, and unlike a car it is a job with no electronics to negotiate.

Salt is at its most aggressive here. The island is narrow enough that nothing is far from the water, and untreated hardware simply does not survive. If you own property on Isla Mujeres, treated brass or stainless steel is not a premium upgrade, it is the only thing worth fitting. Anything else you will be replacing inside two years.

Because of the ferry, we price island work as a scheduled visit rather than an emergency call-out wherever possible, and it is cheaper that way. If you have several jobs — a lock change, some copies, a seized padlock — doing them in one crossing costs far less than three separate ones.