Considered among the 10 most beautiful beaches in the world Lopes Mendes is the most visited beach on Ilha Grande. With 3 kilometers of beach with fine white sand, crystal clear water and a good spot for surfing.
Access to Lopes Mendes, from Abraão, can be done by trail or by boat, by both options it is mandatory to go through Pouso beach, where there are two accesses to Lopes Mendes, the main one takes around 20 minutes and goes straight to the right corner of the beach, the other, little known way goes to the left side of the beach and takes around 40 to 50 minutes.
On the right side of the beach, where the largest number of people are concentrated, also has some drinks and natural sandwich vendors. it is possible to rent surfboards.
For surfing, the ideal swell is from the south or southwest, when sites like windguru,surfforecast,surfguruorwindy, particularly thesurfforecasthas had greater assertiveness, and a good forecast for Lopes Mendes, is when it is around 1.1 m to 1.9 m with energy between 200 and 900 jaules, less swell and less power than it is considered to have no wave enough to surf, and bigger than that the waves don't have good formation.
If you are new to surfing, and still don't understand the wave forecast, visit our surfing pagepredictionto know more.
Lopes mendes also offers great diving, but you must walk to the left corner of the beach, where the aguas are calmer with more clarity, and the coast offers snorkeling, something that doesn't happen in the right corner since the coast is practically in the breaking of the waves.
In the left corner between the rocks that separates the beach into two parts, and at the very end of the beach, you can see several workshopsLiticas(where the sambaquis sharpened the tools)
Definitely the beach of Lopes Mendes is the beach that can and should be visited more than once in the trip.
Another very good tip for those going to Lopes Mendes, is to walk along the rocks on the right next to it, which is the little beach of Lopes Mendes, which only has sand at low tide and when the sea is not undertow.