Surf spot guide · Norte Fluminense, Brazil
Macaé's main urban beachbreak, home to a two-decade municipal surf school off the town's busiest waterfront strip.
Praia dos Cavaleiros is Macaé's flagship urban beach, a roughly 1.5 kilometre stretch of sand anchoring the town's waterfront that turns into its busiest social strip after dark, lined with bars, restaurants and hotels. The wave is a straightforward sand-bottom beachbreak with no reef or point structure, fed by swell out of the east and southeast; east and northeast wind run closest to offshore here, while south and southeast wind favor other Macaé beaches instead. Cavaleiros is where the city teaches its own to surf: the free municipal Programa Tirando Onda has run out of Posto 2 for two decades, and in January 2026 the beach hosted a clinic led by Brazilian pro surfer Fábio Gouveia. For a faster, more powerful wave on the same run of sand, surfers walk south to Praia do Pecado, where a rock shelf holds a punchier peak favored by experienced locals. Expect company along the beachfront all day, and the school's students sharing the inside peaks with everyone else.
Soft sandbar peaks peel off Macaé's liveliest strip, where a free surf school has turned local kids into surfers for twenty years.
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Cavaleiros is Macaé's main tourist beach and nightlife strip, so the sand and lineup near Posto 2 stay busy, especially with the municipal surf school's students in session on Tuesday and Friday mornings and afternoons.
Urban, sociable, beginner-friendly
Norte Fluminense
A rock ledge off the sand channels east and southeast swell into Macaé's fastest, most powerful walls.
Norte Fluminense
Rio das Ostras' main surf beach, where regional contests break over the rocky south end bordering Praia do Remanso.
Rio de Janeiro
Praia de Unamar is a long, uncrowded beachbreak on Cabo Frio's Tamoios coast, where the resident Valinha Surf Clube keeps a small local scene running at the Pico da Valinha.
+3 MORE →The municipal surf school runs out of Posto 2, so expect students and instructors working the inside peaks on Tuesday and Friday mornings and afternoons.
East and northeast wind run closest to offshore here, while south and southeast wind favor other Macaé beaches like Barra de Macaé and Barrote instead.
For a punchier, more powerful wave on the same stretch of sand, walk south to Praia do Pecado, where a rock shelf holds a faster peak favored by experienced locals.
The beachfront strip fills with bars, restaurants and foot traffic through the day, so it is busiest exactly where the surf school and casual lineup sit.
HAZARDS · KNOW BEFORE YOU PADDLE
Enter at Posto 2, fronted by the beachfront strip of bars, restaurants and hotels in the middle of Macaé.
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