Big-wave surfer Maya Gabeira on near death at Nazaré the Everest of the ocean

On February 11, 2020, this 22.4m (73.5ft) wave saw Maya Gabeira beat her own world record set in 2018 for the largest wave surfed by a female. Photo / Vitor Estralinha

Maya Gabeira, the girl from Ipanema who moved to Portugal to surf the Everest of the ocean - the infamous giant Nazaré in Portugal - recalls her horrific brush with death in 2013, in an edited extract from Nazaré: Life and Death with the Big Wave Surfers.

There can be few more precarious workplaces than Nazaré. Its volatility lends itself to a sense of the unknown.

When she first breezed into town in October 2013, on the surface, Gabeira did not have the lack of confidence you might expect from a surfer bullied into submission by her peers, as she almost had been in Hawaii. Instead, the surfers already settled in Nazaré talk of the self-belief – almost bravado – emanating from the arrival of this Brazilian collective, including Gabeira, Carlos Burle and the rest of their entourage.

They had all come with the aim of taming the wave they’d heard so much about and yet only seen from the comfort of their computer screens. They, perhaps bullishly on reflection, neither sought the necessary advice from those established there nor did they have quite the safety back-up required for such a dangerous undertaking.

And then, a matter of days later, the horror happened. Gabeira’s accident is still talked about, almost in revered whispers, so unlikely was it that she came out of it alive. Even knowing the outcome, watching footage of it back is harrowing. She battles the elements for a full nine minutes and Burle, in particular, tries to find a way to rescue his stricken partner, mostly to no avail, as the clock ticks towards the eventuality of her possible death.

Moments before her fight for life – Burle at the controls of the jet ski, Gabeira towed behind on the rope – an enormous wave headed their way. Gabeira suddenly had doubts, insecure in her ability to tame it, and voiced those fears. But her tow partner reassured her and then talked her into doing it, and she was catapulted on to a wave that would go on to define her for all the wrong reasons. The sudden dawning realisation for her once on it was that, firstly, it was incredibly rapid.

Maya Gabeira celebrates her first win in a pro competition in the WSL at the second tow surfing challenge in February 2022. Photo / Vitor Estralinha

She found herself travelling at a speed she couldn’t remember quite experiencing before on a surfboard. Plus, in that moment she felt like the wall of water enveloping her was double the size of anything she had surfed in Hawaii or anywhere else in her lifetime.

Once inside it, she rode the first bump, absorbing it with her knees to maintain her balance, so too the second, despite the shockwaves it sent through both body and board. Momentarily, she disappeared from the view of the camera that was filming her every move. At this stage, there was the realisation that the doubts and insecurities had been well founded. The speed of the board over the water seemed to get quicker and quicker, the bumpiness of the water more out of control. She was holding on for dear life, but could almost see the end of the wave and a potential exit from it.

Amid the speed of it all, she had the mental aptitude to know that if one minor mistake was made, the consequences would be devastating.

Recalling the trauma, she can’t quite remember whether it was the third or fourth big bump in the wave that pitched her off the board and sent her flying into the water. Her ejection was so rapid that, watching it back, it’s hard to see exactly what happens in the moment.

On impact with the water, she broke her ankle immediately – an injury she wasn’t aware she had sustained until visiting a second hospital later that day, such was the severity of the other trauma she sustained – as she ploughed face-first into the water with the wave pounding on top of her head.

The violence of the first wave had left her almost breathless, but the subsequent wave was no less ferocious, ripping off her life jacket as it rolled over the top of her. The pounding was so big that she blacked out.

As she flickered in and out of consciousness, she would momentarily pop out at the surface, going from pure blackness to a whirlpool of whitewash. She took deep gulps of air in the few milli-seconds above the waves before the next pounding, as Burle struggled to spot her and perform the necessary rescue.

The team’s cause was not helped by the fact that Burle’s radio had broken a little earlier. Going into such waves without radio communication is an oversight that is unthinkable these days. Lessons often have to be learned the hard way in Nazaré. It meant any spotters on the clifftop were unable to guide Burle to his surf partner.

Feeling increasingly helpless, Gabeira began to say her internal goodbyes to her loved ones back in Brazil. “At that point, I knew I was in serious trouble and had to count on instinct.” For her, it was, in this moment, a solo fight for survival.

Three times her partner came in to attempt a rescue, and three times he was undone by the challenge of the white water. Burle looked to have got to a position to save her but, unfamiliar with the nuances of Nazaré's waterways, he misjudged it and instead hit Gabeira with the sled that hangs off the back of the jet ski, which acts as the rescue platform to any stricken surfer.

The seconds, then minutes ticked on, Gabeira getting increasingly breathless and blacking out. Of her senses, she remembers only her hearing was intact – she was later told it was the last sense to go before death. She recalls thinking, “This is it; I’m going to die.” In those final throes of life, though, she still had the wherewithal to grab the tow rope as Burle circled for another rescue attempt. This time, it got her close enough to the beach that he could scoop her back out of the water.

By the time she was finally dragged on to the beach, she was already unconscious, and CPR was required to bring her back to life. Footage of her chest being aggressively pounded is still on YouTube and makes for hard viewing.

While it was never properly diagnosed, she thinks in the aftermath she suffered something similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Watching the footage back, she says, is like having an out-of-body experience years on.

“It almost feels like it’s not me. I believe I had a good dose of luck that day and sometimes it’s not the time for us to go. I had done a lot of training, but there was a lot of luck involved in my survival, and some miracles … to make me stay alive.”

While the mental scars have long since healed, physically, she will always feel it. The broken ankle was a quick enough fix. But a back injury – which required multiple surgeries and needs constant treatment and management, and will do for the rest of her life – remains, the remnants of that brush with death.

“I had this seriously excessive pain, but also the trauma, insecurities and fear of the wave itself. All the media exposure that came with it made me quite insecure about my space there, and question whether I’d ever be able to surf the wave like I wanted to.”

Her first brief stint in Nazaré had essentially ended in failure. Some publicly criticised her for being there; the overriding message she heard from her hospital bed was “It’s not for you, Maya”. Such comments took their toll for years afterwards. “It’s hard not to let that play in your head when you’re not 100 per cent. So, for years I was struggling to find my feet physically and emotionally. It was: can I, will I, am I brave enough to overcome that on my mind for four years?”

But return she did and, since the end of 2017, she has been one of the permanent features of Nazaré, held in high esteem by the locals and international surfers alike. In contrast to Hawaii, where she had been so ill-treated and felt so alien from her male peers, the only hostility encountered in Nazaré was from the water itself.

And so, the place that nearly killed her became home, and still is today, more so than Brazil. Five years on from her return, she cannot envisage not living in her coastal mountain home. “I must still love it enough to be in this remote place thousands of miles away from my family – with two dogs and a garage full of surfboards. I could be anywhere in the world doing anything – and it’s f***ing cold here a lot of the winter, and I’m from Rio! That makes me believe I must still love it.” But then there is the other part to it – that this is all she knows and all she has ever wanted to do.

Nazaré: Life and Death With The Big Wave Surfers by Matt Majendie (Welbeck Publishing Group, $35) is out on August 1, 2023.