Gabriel Villarán: “I think it’s been a while since I got so many tubes in a single swell”

The Peruvian enjoyed the queen of the Galapagos, La Carola, with the waves sent by Eddie's swell. "La Carola was great (…) I caught thousands of waves"; a video is coming to his channel, here is a preview

January 7, 2025

Videos by Daniel Bacigalupo

Instead of making the usual pilgrimage to the north of his country, or even staying in the Hawaiian Islands where he has been able to ride the biggest waves in the world, the legendary Peruvian Gabriel Villarán chose to go to La Carola in the Galapagos to wait for Eddie's swell.

The sea was gigantic and perfect. Triple overhead trains, perhaps more in some series, broke on the perfect reef of San Cristóbal Island.

One of the keys to the trip for Gabriel, who is used to surfing perfect waves: Taking an 8-footer. This clearly speaks of the Hawaiian magnitude of La Carola.

“La Carola was great. With a good crew, with Cabezón (Goncalves), amazing. Three days of good waves; in fact, Cabezón and I had been talking about going to La Carola for a long time and I always thought about going with a good, big swell, because I knew that the bigger it was, the better,” said Gabriel.

And he added: “And by chance… Well, not by chance but always thinking about being prepared, I took the 8-footer. Because I was thinking of taking 6'4, 6'6, 6'8 and I also said that the 7-footer was enough but I considered taking the 8-footer too to have it there just in case, if we surfed other waves, Cabezón wanted to run an outer over there. It ended up being the board I used the most, because between the wind and the size of the waves, with the 7-footer I got one of the wildest wipe outs I've had in recent years. You don't get into the wave, between it being big, it's massive and it comes from, as they say there 'the oceanic', a giant tumble and it hits the reef, it's very difficult to get off in a comfortable spot. So the 8-footer was perfect and I caught thousands of waves. I think it's been a while since I got so many barrels in a single swell.”

“So, it was really special. Then Toto (from Romaña) and Cesarín (Siles) came a little later and they also killed it, they caught some good waves. It was a great trip and I was super happy and I hope to return soon. It will be in the books,” concluded the Peruvian who announced that he will release a video for his YouTube channel about this trip.