Brazil Downwinders: The Best Kitesurfing Routes in Ceará

Brazil is famous for consistent wind, huge beaches and flat-water lagoons, but there is another reason why so many experienced kitesurfers come to the northeast every year: downwinders.

Instead of spending the whole day riding in front of the same beach, you launch at one point and travel with the wind along the coastline, finishing your session somewhere completely different.

During a single downwinder in Ceará, the conditions and scenery can change constantly. You might ride through ocean chop and waves, pass empty beaches and huge dunes, cross river mouths and finish next to a flat-water lagoon or a small fishing village.

Routes can range from relatively short sessions lasting a couple of hours to multi-day kitesurfing expeditions covering hundreds of kilometres of coastline.

So what makes Brazil such a special place for downwinders, which routes are worth riding, and how good do you need to be before attempting one?

A downwinder is a kitesurfing route where you start at one location and travel predominantly downwind to another location, rather than returning to your original launch spot.

This creates a completely different type of session.

Instead of riding back and forth within the same small area, the coastline itself becomes your route. You still ride across the wind, change direction, choose your line and work with the waves, but your overall movement gradually takes you farther down the coast.

At the end, a vehicle may be waiting to take you back, or on longer expeditions you stay overnight and continue farther downwind the following day.

Once the distance becomes long enough, a downwinder stops feeling like a normal kite session. It becomes a way of travelling by kite.

Ceará combines several things that are difficult to find together elsewhere: a long coastline, consistent seasonal trade winds and a huge number of kitesurfing spots located one after another.

During the main wind season, conditions can allow riders to cover significant distances along the coast, with many routes connecting established kite destinations.

That makes the logistics surprisingly natural. You can launch near one village, spend several hours travelling along the coast, arrive at another kite spot and continue the journey the following day.

This geography has made possible multi-day expeditions connecting places such as Cumbuco, Taíba, Preá and the Jericoacoara region.

Instead of driving between kite spots and unpacking your gear each time, you can actually kite between them.

The main kitesurfing season along the Ceará coast generally runs from around July to January, with the most consistent conditions usually found during the second half of the year.

For longer downwind trips, August, September, October and November are particularly attractive because reliable wind makes it easier to plan consecutive days on the water.

But the month alone is never enough to decide whether a particular downwinder is safe. Wind direction and strength, tides, waves, ocean conditions and the planned exit point all need to be considered before starting.

Even during peak season, the exact route should be adapted to the actual conditions of the day.

Preá is one of the most convenient bases for exploring downwind routes in this part of Ceará.

You can start with a relatively manageable route and gradually progress toward longer distances as your confidence and endurance improve.

• Preá to Jericoacoara

The route from Preá toward Jericoacoara is one of the best-known downwinders in the area and a great introduction to this style of riding.

Starting from Preá, you follow the coastline toward Jericoacoara, with the landscape gradually changing as you approach the dunes and distinctive scenery around the national park. The exact distance depends on the chosen launch and exit points, so it makes more sense to think of it as a route rather than one fixed number of kilometres.

There is one important detail: the final section and exit around Jericoacoara require some local knowledge because wind and landing conditions can be more complicated than along the main part of the route. For your first attempt, it is much better to ride with someone who knows the coastline and the correct exit points.

• Preá to Guriú

If you want to continue farther, Preá to Guriú is the next interesting option. This already feels more like a proper journey. You spend longer moving along the coastline and encounter more varied conditions along the way.

The Guriú area also brings a noticeable change of scenery, with the river, mangroves and flatter sections creating a very different environment from the open ocean around Preá.

For riders who have already tried a shorter downwinder and want to take the next step, this is a natural progression.

• Preá to Tatajuba

Continuing all the way to Tatajuba turns the session into a much bigger adventure.

Depending on the exact launch and finish points, the route is roughly 30–40 km, making it considerably more demanding than a short introductory downwinder.

Tatajuba itself is well known among kitesurfers for its dunes, lagoons and completely different atmosphere compared with Preá. For an independent rider who is already comfortable in ocean conditions and wants to experience a longer Brazilian downwinder, this is one of the most interesting routes in the region.

• Guriú to Tatajuba

Not every downwinder needs to start in Preá. A shorter alternative is to start around Guriú and finish in Tatajuba, with the exact distance depending on the chosen start and exit points.

This is a good option if you want to experience travelling between kite spots without committing to several hours of continuous riding from Preá.

• Tatajuba to Camocim

More experienced riders can continue farther west toward Camocim.

At this point, the experience starts moving away from a normal recreational session and closer to a small kite expedition. The distances become longer, the coastline less familiar and proper planning increasingly important.

Endurance, equipment preparation, route knowledge and support all matter much more once you start moving farther away from the most familiar kite areas.

Yes, and this is where Brazil becomes particularly interesting.

Multi-day downwind journeys can connect different sections of the Ceará coastline, starting around Cumbuco and continuing west through places such as Taíba, Lagoinha and other kite spots toward Preá and the Jericoacoara region.

In this format, every day becomes another stage of the journey. You wake up in one place, prepare your equipment, kite the next section of coastline and finish the day somewhere completely different.

A trip like this can last several days and cover a huge section of northeastern Brazil. You are no longer travelling somewhere to go kitesurfing. Kitesurfing itself becomes the way you travel.

A downwinder is not something you should attempt immediately after riding your first independent runs.

You should be comfortable riding in both directions, controlling your speed, changing direction and managing the kite without constant assistance.

You also need to understand your safety system and be able to deal with basic problems independently.

One skill is particularly important: body dragging.

Losing your board in front of a kite school is one thing. Losing it several kilometres from your starting point during a downwinder is very different.

The longer and more remote the route, the more important rider independence becomes.

A short guided downwinder may be suitable for an intermediate rider who has recently become independent. A multi-day expedition requires much stronger ocean skills, endurance and confidence in changing conditions.

At your home spot, you probably know where the rocks are, where it is easy to exit, what happens to the wind near shore and where you will drift if something goes wrong.

During a downwinder, all of that keeps changing. There may be waves around one section of coastline, rocks farther ahead, shallow areas, river mouths or difficult exits that are not obvious from the water.

A good local guide does more than show you a beautiful route. They know which sections to avoid, where the safe exit points are and what to do if someone in the group cannot continue.

Longer downwinders may also involve support vehicles travelling along accessible parts of the coast and meeting the riders at predetermined points.

That logistics can make the difference between an adventurous session and an unnecessarily complicated one.

For a short route, properly maintained equipment and your normal protective gear may be enough. As distances increase, preparation becomes much more important.

Before launching, check your kite, lines, bar, quick release, harness and board carefully.

A minor equipment issue that would mean a ten-minute walk back to the kite school on your home beach can become a serious problem halfway through a long route.

For longer downwinders, sun protection, water and a reliable way to communicate with the support team also become important.

And before launching, everyone should know where the planned finish is and what happens if someone needs to exit early.

One mistake is to treat a long downwind route as a challenge to reach the finish as quickly as possible. That misses much of the point.

A good downwinder gives you time to play in the waves, explore interesting sections of coastline, change your pace and simply look around.

In Ceará, you can leave a busy kite spot behind and within a relatively short distance find yourself riding past huge stretches of coastline with little around you except the ocean, dunes and the other kites in your group.

This is also why distance alone does not tell you how good a route is.

Thirty kilometres ridden as fast as possible and thirty kilometres spent exploring the coastline can feel like two completely different trips.

If you have never done a downwinder before, there is no reason to start with a five-day expedition.

Choose a relatively short route with straightforward logistics and local support first. A route from Preá toward Jericoacoara, for example, can introduce you to the basic idea without immediately committing to a huge distance.

Once you know that you are comfortable spending several hours moving along the coastline, you can start looking farther west toward Guriú, Tatajuba, Camocim or eventually a multi-day journey across Ceará.

And at some point, a slightly dangerous thought tends to appear: Why keep returning to the same beach?

This is also why our Brazil trips are not designed around spending seven days riding in front of the same hotel.

Kite Hub runs a 7-day kitesurfing journey through Ceará for independent riders, where we explore different spots, ride different conditions and include downwinders as part of the experience.

The goal is not simply to collect famous spot names.

We want to experience Ceará in the way that makes the most sense for a kitesurfer: through the ocean, lagoons, dunes, small villages and the kilometres of coastline connecting them.

→ Explore the Kite Hub Brazil Kitesurfing Trip

What to Read Next?