Tambaba is the first beach in Brazil where naturism was permitted by municipal law, and that distinction carries more weight than it might sound. Naturist beaches elsewhere in the country tend to run on custom, local tolerance and a certain amount of hoping nobody complains. Tambaba runs on a statute. The Federação Brasileira de Naturismo counts it among a small group of officially recognised naturist beaches nationally, and it is the one the others cite as precedent. The name comes from Tupi and refers to shell remains — the debris of shellfish, which is a fair description of what the tide leaves along the waterline.

Naturism here is administered by an association, Tambaba Nua, and it comes with conditions that are posted, enforced and not open to negotiation. Complete nudity is required to enter the naturist sector — partial dress is not an option, and neither is spectating from the edge. Filming and photography are prohibited without authorisation. Sexual behaviour of any kind is entirely forbidden. So are drugs. The cumulative effect of that list is to make the place ordinary, which is precisely the intention. What happens at Tambaba is a regulated practice with a governing body, a code of conduct and a membership culture behind it, closer in spirit to a swimming club than to anything the word nudist tends to summon up.

The beach is divided. On one side are the naturists; on the other, everyone who prefers to keep their clothes on. The two sectors share the same sand, the same warm Atlantic and the same line of cliffs behind. Tambaba is short — about a kilometre, set between Arapuca to the north and Barra do Graú to the south, in the Jacumã district of Conde on the southern Paraíba coast, roughly thirty kilometres from João Pessoa. The land behind the beach rises only about five metres. UOL Viagens has put Tambaba on a list of the twenty most beautiful beaches in Brazil, which in this country is a fiercely contested category.

For years the last stretch of road in was unpaved, and that did as much to regulate visitor numbers as any bylaw could. It ended when the Ministro Abelardo Jurema highway, the PB-008, was completed and the route from João Pessoa was surfaced end to end. Meanwhile the expanded BR-101 running Recife–João Pessoa–Natal brought the whole southern Paraíba coast — Tabatinga, Praia Bela, Coqueirinho — within comfortable reach of three state capitals, and tourism has become one of the more important things the Paraíba economy does. A 150-hectare development, the Tambaba Country Club Resort, is closely tied to the beach. Getting here is easier than it has ever been. The rules at the top of the sand have not moved.