The Pacific Ocean that borders northern Peru is colder than expected at this latitude. I feel it the moment I slip in the water, a refreshing shock that loosens my joints and cleanses my body and mind after thirty-two hours of airports and asphalt. The water is foreign and familiar at once, acquainted with people that hold uniquely different lived experiences, yet familiar to me. It is the same ocean I’ve known my whole life.
Scattered throughout the water with me are ten clients, each trusting their boat captains to tow them into the waves of their lives, the deep rift of language barrier the only hurdle between them. A long year of logistics, scheduling conflicts, currency conversions, and insurance policies has deposited us all, somehow, at this exact location on the Peruvian coast.
I look toward the point. The first set of the trip is already on its way.
Among the watersports community, the word Chicama (pronounced Chee-ka-ma) triggers a Pavlovian response. A torrent of oohs and ahs followed by a chorus of “that’s on my bucket list”. But, if you look closely, only a handful of faces have actually experienced it. Chalk it up to the brutal travel, the off-grid accommodations, or the culture shock, the wave remains mythologized by many and understood by few. For those who have visited Chicama, they understand the beauty held within the bay, the captivating, bone-deep muscle fatigue that comes after riding ten waves per hour, for six hours a day, for days on end.
For those who live here, Chicama holds a much deeper history of culture, community and family amongst the quaint fishing village. Dozens of boats are moored past the pier illuminating the night in a soft glow, having pulled from the ocean an abundance of food the desert can never provide. Women sell ceviche and chicha morada from carts along the malecón, calling out to local fishermen and foreign surfers alike, year after year, trip after trip. Everyone here wears the ocean in their salt-cracked hands and sun-worn skin; a rhythm to the day that is in sync with the tide. It’s a village that runs on relationships and connections instead of the clock, where a shared cerveza after a long session matters more than the wave count.
The flight to Trujillo is a blur, and I sleep through most of the two-hour drive that follows, waking only in quick moments to witness the barren desert and dispersed communities that pass by. I arrive sleep-deprived and loopy, already behind schedule. Chorry, our boat manager and local backbone, wears a smile larger than life as he waits. He reads my tired eyes before I say a word and we agree to catch up after the session. He goes back to hitching boat trailers to the rusty three-wheeled tuk tuks, and I go back to my gear. Dazed, I struggle to make a decision. Was the front wing supposed to be 480, 590, or 850? Should I wear the 2mm, the 4/3, or the 5/4? Mast length — 86, 79, or maybe the 93? Board volume: 19L at 4'2" or 32L at 4'0"? The 8ft swell at 15 seconds flashes through my mind alongside the 3pm start time, now only four minutes away. I’m momentarily overwhelmed, but a rushed “nos vemos” and I was moving again.
With one last screw check, we step out of our back door to head to the beach. All worries dissipate. There is the famous Chicama corduroy pulsing throughout the bay, wave after wave raked by the gentle cross-offshore wind, feathering in long parallel lines for nearly 2.5 miles. Empty. Perfect. Waiting.
Aside from the wave itself, I am most excited today about the crew joining me. By sheer coincidence, nine of the ten clients on this trip are father-son pairs. Different generations of the same obsession, each with their own dynamic and their own unspoken reasons for being here. Jill, our part-time photographer and my full-time friend rounds out the group and helps keep me sane. On paper I’m running the show, but in practice each pair has their own internal hierarchy, which is best left for them to sort out. The fathers find each other quickly, as fathers do, trading notes on their new gear with the comfortable authority of men who have been wrong about past purchases and lived to buy more. The sons gravitate towards each other just as naturally, sampling the local coca leaves and cataloguing the trip with macho poses and grandiose smiles. The connections amongst the group feel uncanny and lifelong from the first beat, and I feel a wave of gratitude for being able to share such a surreal place with them.
We land on the beach with gear piled around us, a six-foot shorebreak unloading in steady sets with no sign of letting up. Drivers look at riders. Riders look back. Nobody moves. The energy is unmistakably that of a school gym class, all of us waiting for a leader to step forward. Then I remember: that’s me! Laughing to myself, I start calling out pairs—son with father, father with driver—and one by one, reluctantly but committed, each pair loads a zodiac. While the riders lash their masts to the bows, the drivers wait for enough white water to wash up the beach to push the boats out.
Jill and I are paired with Yordi, a familiar face from last year’s trip. By far the most energetic driver, he reveals his excitement with an aerial 360 roundhouse kick before bringing me in for a bear hug. In the foiling world we think a lot about equipment—wing sizes, mast lengths, board volumes, aspect ratios—and comparatively little about the human beings who make these sessions possible. Drivers in Chicama are not just boat operators; they are wave readers, safety nets, local encyclopedias, and the final word on whether you take a set or wait for the next. Yordi grew up along this coast. He knows every mood of the bay: when the tide is pulling too fast, and when the inside section is closing out, to when the fog is hiding a lull that’s about to reveal the wave of the day. When he tells you to hold, you hold. When he says go, you commit. His experience, and that of the other drivers, is your lifeline in the water, and treating it as anything less is the kind of mistake you only make once.
This first session is intense and overwhelming, the overhead surf catching most of us off guard, pushing new gear to its limits in unfamiliar conditions. The ocean has a way of stripping away whatever version of ourselves we’d shown up with. What is left is a modest, more humble version of ourselves, all pulling for one another.
The next few days coalesce into a rhythm as reliable as the swell itself. Wake up at 5:15am. In the water by 6am. Ride until 9am. Breakfast at 10:30am, lunch at 1:30pm, and longingly watch the water while we digest and refuel. If the wind picks up, we reach for wings and parawings. If the bay stays glassy we’re back in the boats at 3pm until sunset at 6pm. Dinner at 6:30pm with a prompt 9pm bedtime. We are asleep before we hit the pillow, dreaming of waves yet to be ridden.
The morning of the fourth day, I reluctantly squeeze into my wet wetsuit and step to the bluff to check the conditions. The swell is still solid, dreamy and steady, never leaving our sight as we grab our gear and shuffle down to the beach. After the awkward assignment of drivers to riders, we promptly find ourselves in pristine conditions once again.
This bay where we surf is actually called Puerto Malabrigo, a name that carries centuries of history in just four syllables. Malabrigo translates loosely from Spanish as “bad shelter,” a term reportedly coined by early Spanish explorers who found the exposed headland a treacherous anchorage. Intrigued by the lore, I query each of our boat drivers on their connection to the bay and its water as we approach La Punta. With each interaction, I can feel a connection develop with these people and this place, now understanding that some of our drivers ran from their homes in Venezuela, supporting families of five while living four hours away or, like me, they are just beginning to mentally map the waters here.
One of our drivers, Gregory, hints at a local lore that attributes the Malabrigo name to a pirate who used the cove as a trading post with the indigenous Chimu people of the area. Today, fishermen haul their boats onto the same beach where we rig our foils, and the word Chicama, the name of the wider district, has been layered upon all of it like the swell lines that stack on the horizon in front of me.
With me in-tow, we head out past La Punta and find a flat horizon. Nothing on the way. I come off foil and hear Yordi say, “Vamos a esperar por la serie.” Listen to your driver. I lay back on the board, eyes on the clouds, channeling my inner Chicken Joe. “Whoa! That cloud looks just like a kitten!”
I awaken from this dreamlike trance as I feel the energy of a healthy set roll in from the south. I sit up, eager to push the limits of the new gear I am borrowing from a friend. Yordi reaches back to fire the engine and heaves at the cord. Nothing. No resistance at all, just the loose, sinking feeling of being dead in the water. He pulls again, gets the same nothing, and lets out a laugh.
With a sharp sniff, a click of the tongue and crack of the neck, Yordi walks to the front of the zodiac, unclips a dry bag, and lays out his tools, the unhurried focus of a man who has done this before in worse conditions. He pulls the engine cover, sets the screws somewhere they won’t roll into the ocean, and gets to work. Springs, plastic tabs, a tangle of small metal parts—the inside of a small outboard engine that looks like a foreign language sounds, and I am very much illiterate. Humming to himself, he systematically taps parts of the engine with a socket wrench and lubricates small pieces with his own saliva, his fingers the precise applicators. Curiously, I watch as he pauses, apparently satisfied. He replaces the cover, resets the screws and gives me a casual nod as he snatches the cord.
The engine roars back to life, and I find myself dropping into the next wave at La Punta faster than Jill can say “Sheboygan!”.
I snap my first frontside turn off the top of the head-high, mushy wall fanning out in front of me. My thoughts focus on pure sensation. Buzzing past other boats with foilers in tow, searching for more of the same behind me, I throw out shakas and yews left and right, the universal language of stoke that needs no translation.
The wave mellows and reforms as I follow the steepest sections from left to right, approaching the next break down the bay called “El Cape”. As I stay closer to the rocky coastline, the wave holds its power, revealed by the energy that releases violently on shore as I ride by. Each wave is unique, and I keep my head on a swivel to stay with the energy as it shifts, or plan an escape route if the section chooses to betray me.
As I continue through the breaks, I feel my legs start to fatigue from this minute-long ride. Looking behind, La Punta is within a few hundred yards, while out in front of me is another mile. Settle into the pain. Feel the burn!
As I approach a group of surfers and SUPers, I peel left to give them space while showering them with stoke. They own this next section, called La Cruz, and it’s necessary to maintain good standings with those riders who have to work for every wave.
Between La Cruz and El Point, the wave sharpens again, quick and playful, and I feel lucky to be riding gear that’s dialed into this wave. Calling in a few favors, the borrowed mast is longer to handle the bigger days, the board reactive but not twitchy, and the foil is confidence inspiring. I feel it with each drop and turn, handling the steeper sections with authority, gliding gracefully through the fat ones, and locked in each time the foil tips skim out with a satisfying hiss.
Fifty yards off the rocks, the swell stands up tall, revealing its true size, the top quarter feathering unwillingly as it reaches for the horizon. The energy of this section carries me right while the left diverges and flattens. The inside reform pulls me closer to the rocks with each committed turn. Feeling myself getting carried away, I glance over my shoulder to start planning my exit, a plan that falls apart the instant I see the head-high section barreling down on me.
In desperation, I snap up and over the wave at speed. The lip of the breaking wave chops the backside of my knees and launches me sky high, sending me tumbling in an astronaut’s backflip before slamming to the water. Utterly disoriented, I surface behind the wave, immediately realizing the consequences of leaving my leash behind at the house. I feel my heart drop as I watch my borrowed board pinball toward the rocks. Behind me, Yordi waits patiently for one last wave to pass, before decisively rescuing me in the boat. I receive sharp lashings in Spanish for my careless decisions before we devise a plan to retrieve the board.
With little debate, Yordi insists that the boat is unable to deliver me closer to the rocks, and a long swim is in order. Confidently, he assures me
there is nothing to worry about near the rocks. Another set detonates up and over the point in front of us. I feel the conviction of his words as we lock eyes for a moment, and, trusting his confidence and impatient nod, I launch my body over the bow of the boat towards the jagged point.
Swimming quickly but calmly, I navigate the lineup, pausing between sets as I work closer to the break. I see the board smashing against the rocks in front of me. The water is drawing hard off the shallows, pulling me back toward the main break with every surge.
Behind me, the biggest set of the day builds on the horizon.
I quickly duck under and bear hug a rock two strong pulls below the surface. The wave passes overhead, distorting the light with flashes of black and white. I hold. Pushing up off the sea floor, I continue to make slow, arduous progress before the next wave builds in front of me. Ducking down, I hold again. By the time I reach knee-deep water, where the sea stops helping and the rocks begin to hinder, I’m on all fours, picking my way over the largest boulders in front of me. In my head, I’m tip-toeing between poisonous urchins, killer crabs, and hungry cookie-cutter sharks offended by my intrusion. I hear Yordi’s calm voice in my head: “No te preocupes, no hay peligroso.” I cement myself to the closest rocks, resisting the sea as it drains away one last time before leaping up to dry land.
I find the board resting half in the water, half on the rocks, and suspiciously still. I approach cautiously, the way a father approaches a son who has taken a fall. Gently. Bracing for the worst, hoping the damage is less than the impacts suggested. Not a scratch. Not on the board, not on the foil, not on me. I stare at my friend’s kit, relieved I wouldn’t have to break any bad news and could continue my session.
“Que carajo.”
I slip back into the water to rejoin the boat, now with a significantly deeper appreciation for the years of experience Yordi has in these waters. Back on the boat, I’m suddenly aware of the aquatic connections that reveal themselves to me—the gentle spray of salt water that releases from fishermen’s nets, the contagious energy that arrives with each incoming set, the captivating smiles that permeate the local inhabitants. These overwhelming sensations drive a connectedness and warmth towards those who share this passion for the water and a life lived within it.
Knowing our trip is coming to an end, the Pisco Sour party in the evening acts as a celebration for newly formed relationships. The evening is filled with strong embraces and tall Peruvian drinks. At the dinner table, a set of dice is produced and the game becomes Dudo, originally a Peruvian bluffing game that inspired Liar’s Dice in Pirates of the Caribbean. Maria, our cook, and her fourteen-year-old daughter Maria Fe, sit across from Peter who is sampling coca leaves for the second time and knocking his dice off the table for the third. Steve and Witt have their arms around their boat driver, Gregory, graciously thanking him for sharing his foil board with them. Jill and Yordi are gasping for breath, pointing and calling each other’s bluff on tres treses. AJ and Russ happily flip through videos of the perfect backlit waves captured by Axel, our drone photographer. They both understand how invaluable it is to share these memorable sessions with friends and family. I look around the table and realize we are all winners, Lleno in every way. The night concludes with a heartfelt hasta pronto knowing we’ll all be returning next year.
