Praia da Barra da Lagoa

Florianópolis's teaching beach, and the reason most people who learn to surf on the island learn here. The shoreline shelves gently and sits partly in the lee of the headland, so incoming swell arrives slowed and reformed rather than dumping — slow, rolling, repeatable waves at a size that stays manageable. Almost every school on the island runs lessons on this sand, and the village behind it is where the island's surf hostels cluster. The trade is that it rarely excites anyone past improver level: when the island gets a proper winter groundswell, Barra is where you go if everywhere else is too big.