Peru's Perfectly Pealing Pointbreak Perfection

Famous for the length of rides available - I couldn't wait to pit myself against these feats of nature.  

Lobitos

The swells here are created by Southern Ocean storms that spin up past the eastern coast of New Zealand. After their 10,000km NE journey across the Pacific they smash up the coast of Peru and bend round it's points to create endlessly peeling - liquid freight trains.

If Carlsberg made forecasts

 

The north of Peru is a desert and it's here that the majority of these points are found. Easily 360 days of sunshine a year and so close to the equator that the sunlight is real intense. 

Combine that with the limited running water, sand in the air, an average of 4-5 hours surfing a day, pollution in the water from the oil extraction, 12hr/day contact lenses wearing and you'll find it takes its toll on certain parts of the body. 

Hello eye infection

One night I woke up fairly concerned - my eyes were glued shut with dried puss.

The surfing part of the meander began back in Panama Nov 2010. This means that it has been almost 7 months of constant surfing and to be honest I was aware that after Peru it was to end for a while. The desire was to finish it with a good wave so I waited for the arrival of a big swell and headed to Chicama – the worlds longest wave.  

Big waves far away look very small

After some pretty technical map work I was able to ascertain that the longest of the leg burning rides was easily over half a mile. And when comparing that to the 'drop – pump – pump – finish' most of the world rides on beach breaks it's surely got to be on the nominee list for 'wonders of the world'. 
Although, the saying is true 'size doesn't matter, it's what you do with it that counts'. Therefore to be honest; as impressive as Chicama is, it ain't really that stimulating. 

My Oscar for best wave though has to be given to Piscinas, a wave that due to military restrictions only started to be surfed around 2004. 

The Piscinas Face Scrape

Only around 150m long but if you caught a long line from the right direction it was tonnes of heaving pacific juice all the way down to the middle of the bay. Where you got out, walked back up to the point, jumped in off the rock and did it again.

So perfect you'd expect to find it in one of Walt's amusement parks.

One side hell – The other heaven