Praia dos Cavaleiros.
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.
