🇧🇷 Brazil · South
Bombinhas is one of those corners where southern Brazil turns into a paradise of transparent water. On a small mountainous peninsula in Santa Catarina, covered in Mata Atlântica and ringed by the Atlantic, this tiny municipality gathers some 39 beaches of pale sand and crystalline sea, coves tucked between rocks, and forest that comes right down to the shore. Its clear water and marine life made it famous as the country's southern 'diving capital', a magnet for anyone who loves snorkeling, diving and a clean sea.
What sets Bombinhas apart is that mix of preserved nature and picture-postcard sea in a small, walkable space. There are beaches for every taste: the big family ones like Bombas and Bombinhas, the surfer and party ones like Mariscal and Quatro Ilhas, and the more secluded treasures you reach by trail, like the tiny Praia da Sepultura, with its still turquoise water made for snorkeling. Off the coast, the Reserva Biológica Marinha do Arvoredo protects one of the richest marine ecosystems in the South Atlantic, a sanctuary for divers.
This guide covers the essentials of Bombinhas with a practical, warm eye: which beaches to pick depending on what you're after, where to snorkel and dive, which lookouts give the best views over the peninsula, how to get around and how to make the most of the season without the crowds wearing you down. Bombinhas is a place to slow down, put your head under the water, walk between forest and sea and discover a Brazil of clear water that many don't expect to find this far south.
Bombinhas is a young municipality, but its history is rooted in the settlement of the Santa Catarina coast. Before the Europeans, the region was inhabited by Indigenous peoples, among them the Carijós (a Guarani group of the southern coast), and it holds even older traces in the sambaquis, those mounds of shells and remains left by millennia-old fishing and foraging populations along the shore. From the 18th century on, the coast of Santa Catarina was colonized above all by Azorean immigrants (from the Azores islands) and mainland Portuguese, who founded artisanal fishing communities along the shoreline, living off fishing —especially tainha and sardines— and leaving a strong Azorean-rooted culture in the architecture, the religious life, the language and the food. For a long time, the beaches of the Bombinhas peninsula were quiet fishing villages belonging to the municipality of Porto Belo. The great change came with tourism: from the last decades of the 20th century, the beauty of its beaches and the clarity of its water drew visitors and divers, transforming the local economy. Bombinhas broke away from Porto Belo after a referendum in March 1992 (State Law 8,558) and was installed as an independent municipality on 1 January 1993, establishing itself from then on as one of the great seaside destinations of southern Brazil and as the regional 'diving capital', always with the tension between tourist development and the conservation of its nature, today protected in several conservation units. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The southern state of beaches, islands and cool highlands: settled by Azoreans, Germans and Italians, stage of Garibaldi's short-lived Juliana Republic and of the bloody Guerra do Contestado. Land of Florianópolis and its dozens of beaches, of the Blumenau Oktoberfest and of the only corner of Brazil where it regularly snows.
Read the history of Santa Catarina →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Some places are named for what you see; Bombinhas was named for what you hear. The story goes that the first settlers, arriving on this Santa Catarina peninsula, mistook the crash of the waves against the rocks for small bombs going off —'bombinhas'— and that roar of the sea ended up naming the town. But long before anyone put a name to the noise of the waves, this coast was already inhabited by peoples who lived off the sea. The oldest evidence of that human presence is the sambaquis: huge mounds built up from layers of mollusc shells, fish bones, hearth remains and, sometimes, burials, accumulated over thousands of years by populations of fishers, hunters and gatherers who lived along the southern coast of Brazil. These 'shell sites' are one of the great archaeological treasures of the Santa Catarina coast and speak of a very ancient human occupation of the region.
Closer in time, when the first Europeans arrived, the coast was occupied by Tupi-Guarani-speaking peoples. On the Santa Catarina shoreline lived the Carijós, one of the names used for the Guarani groups of the southern coast. They lived off fishing, gathering shellfish, hunting and farming, in a setting of bays, peninsulas and islands that offered abundant resources from the sea.
The place names and the archaeology of the coast preserve that original trace, from before Portuguese colonization. The peninsula that Bombinhas occupies today, with its sheltered coves and its sea rich in life, was part of that coastal landscape, inhabited and used by the peoples of the sea long before the European settlers arrived.
The great cultural stamp of the Santa Catarina coast, and therefore of the Bombinhas region, comes from Portuguese colonization and, above all, from Azorean immigration. During the 18th century, the Portuguese Crown pushed for the settlement of southern Brazil in order to secure possession of the territory against disputes with Spain. As part of that plan, it encouraged the arrival of families from the Azores and Madeira, who settled along the Santa Catarina coast from the middle of the 18th century.
These Azorean settlers founded numerous communities of fishers and smallholders in the bays, peninsulas and islands of the coast, including the region of present-day Bombinhas and neighboring Porto Belo. They lived off artisanal fishing —with the tainha and sardine catch as their central activities—, subsistence farming and the production of cassava flour. Their culture left a deep and lasting imprint on the simple architecture of the fishermen's houses, on popular religious life, on the festivals, on the way people speak and on a cuisine marked by seafood.
For a long time, the beaches of the Bombinhas peninsula were small, quiet fishing villages, far from the major centers, where life revolved around the sea and the fishing seasons. That fishing and Azorean identity is still, today, part of the soul of the place, underneath the tourist postcard.
For much of its modern history, the villages of the Bombinhas peninsula did not make up a municipality of their own; they were part of Porto Belo, the neighboring town that was the administrative seat of the area. The region was known for its fishermen and for the beauty of its beaches, but it stayed relatively remote and quiet, far from the mass tourist circuits of the Brazilian coast.
The transformation came in the last decades of the 20th century, when tourism discovered the region. The extraordinary clarity of the water, the number and variety of beaches packed into a small peninsula and the richness of the marine life —especially around the islands that would later be protected as the Reserva do Arvoredo— began to draw summer visitors, surfers and, above all, divers. Bombinhas started to gain a reputation as an exceptional seaside destination within Santa Catarina.
That tourist growth changed the local economy profoundly: from fishing villages it moved to an economy centered on summer tourism, with pousadas, seafood restaurants and dive operators. The rise in visitors brought prosperity, but it also raised the challenge —which continues to this day— of balancing development with the preservation of the natural setting that is, precisely, the place's greatest draw.
The growth of tourism and the development of the peninsula led, naturally, to a push for administrative autonomy from Porto Belo. On 15 March 1992 the emancipation referendum was held, with a decisive result: 1,454 votes in favor and just 75 against. Days later, State Law no. 8,558 of 30 March 1992 officially created the municipality of Bombinhas, which was installed on 1 January 1993 with Manoel Marcílio dos Santos, 'Maneca', as its first elected mayor.
The new municipality was born small in area —it's one of the smallest in Santa Catarina— but with a very clearly defined tourist identity, built around its beaches, its transparent sea and diving. From its emancipation onward, Bombinhas was able to manage its own development, its infrastructure and, increasingly, the conservation policies for the natural heritage that underpins its economy.
Since then, the municipality has established itself as one of the great seaside destinations of southern Brazil and as the region's 'diving capital'. Managing tourism —with enormous population peaks in summer against a much smaller permanent population— and protecting the environment (with the Reserva do Arvoredo off the coast and various conservation units on land) have become the big themes of local life, in a permanent balancing act between tourist appeal and preservation.
If one milestone defines the tourist identity of Bombinhas, it's the creation of the Reserva Biológica Marinha do Arvoredo. In 1990, the Brazilian federal government created this strictly protected marine conservation unit off the Santa Catarina coast, covering a group of islands —Ilha do Arvoredo, the Galés, the Deserta and the Calhau de São Pedro islet— and the waters around them. The aim was to protect one of the richest marine ecosystems in the South Atlantic, a point where waters of different temperatures meet and remarkable biodiversity gathers.
The reserve holds rocky reefs, shoals of fish, sea turtles, rays, octopus and abundant underwater flora and fauna, in water of great clarity. That richness, added to the clarity of the water at the peninsula's beaches and coves, turned Bombinhas into a benchmark destination for diving and snorkeling, earning it the nickname 'diving capital' of southern Brazil. Because it's a strictly protected biological reserve, visits and diving are regulated and take place through licensed operators and in authorized zones, in order to conserve the fragile ecosystem.
The creation of the Reserva do Arvoredo, alongside other protected areas on land (municipal parks and conservation units that shelter the peninsula's Mata Atlântica), reflects the region's commitment to protecting the natural heritage that underpins its appeal. The recent history of Bombinhas is, in large part, the history of that effort to reconcile expanding tourism with the conservation of an exceptional marine and coastal environment.