By Javier Fernandez Urbina

I started surfing in the summer of 1978. Before that I learned to ride waves with my body and then using some little boards lying down. From the summer of 1979 onwards I went to the beaches of Punta Hermosa to ride waves (it was a paradise of happiness because there are rights and lefts). Sometimes I would go to sleep lying down on the rich, white, thick sand of Caballeros beach in a sleeping bag next to the restaurant of a fisherman friend called Marcelo (to ride waves all day for a whole week).

In the seventies, people started using pitas and wetsuits in Peru and I suppose this helped people start riding all those waves in Punta Hermosa, because they have a rocky bottom and strong waves.

At the beginning of those wonderful seventies of the twentieth century, there was still no road for cars to access these breakers and surfers walked down the cliff.

Cholo Bouroncle (the owner of BOZ) told me that the Ladies' competition has been held since 1972 and the Men's competition since 1973. Before, in the sixties, surfers used to race Kontiki, Punta Rocas and La Isla without a leash and without a wetsuit on single-keel boards.

On the rocky point where the waves of Pacharacas (right) and Señoritas (left) break, I tell the following: Who gave it the name Señoritas? I don't know, but on that beach were the prettiest girls of Punta Hermosa and Lima, on the sand enjoying the sun and seducing the surfers with their little bikinis.

Pacharacas began to be used in the eighties and we gave it that name because it is the antonym of Señoritas. In Lima, girls who were very easy to win over were called that, now they are called las jugadores. That right was also given another name, “Punta Oscar” in homage to the surfer Oscar Morante who was the owner of a hotel for surfers in Punta Hermosa and was a character much loved by the locals.

When Don Oscar passed away, we surfers paid tribute to him there in the sea next to those waves. On the shore of Señoritas was the Del Castillo family restaurant, the ceviches and ice-cold beers were delicious.

Regarding the rocky point where the waves of Caballeros (right) and Uluwater (left) break, what I learned was the following: Cholo Bouroncle told me that in the winter of 1973, a group of four surfers rode the waves of Caballeros for the first time, one of them was Felipe Pomar (who now lives in Hawaii). When they arrived, Felipe asked them what their name was and they answered that they didn’t have a name. When they came out of the sea, Felipe asked them again if they had a name yet, and when they again answered that they didn’t, he said to them: “Well, guys, since it’s next to Señoritas, we’ll call it Caballeros, what do you think?” And they answered: “Perfect, buddy.”

Thus, that day the creative-surfing rule of using an antonym was established, which was later used to give a name to Pacharacas – Señoritas.

In the eighties I started to ride the left waves of Caballeros alone and I started to think about whether it would work well to use that creative surfing rule of the antonym to give it a name (Pacharacas was Señoritas; then Caballeros = ?) but I didn't like the result.

Since the G-Land wave became famous all over the world (because of the tubes) in that decade, I came up with the idea of ​​naming it Uluwater because this wave doesn't have a radical tube (as happens in Indonesia if you compare G-Land with Uluwatu). And the truth is, I don't know what they call that left that very few people used to ride today. I also remember that the peak where that fun left was formed also had a short right but with a better shape than the left, there was only one surfer called Sergio Marquina, that's why the locals in Caballeros also called it Marquina Peak.

This peak is located north of the usual surfing spot in Caballeros. This 50-metre paddle across the foam discouraged many people.