Maya Gabeira has gone through the wringer and come out stronger. Photo: Abrams Books
When I called Maya Gabeira, she was in her home in Nazare, Portugal, just 10 minutes away from the break that once nearly killed her. She’d just returned from a month in Indonesia and was shaking off the jet lag.
She has a lot more going on lately than just Indo trips. Though she’s best known as a big wave charger who, in 2020, broke the Guinness world record for the biggest wave ever surfed by a woman, Gabeira has since become a multi-hyphenate. Her love of the ocean has led to work as an environmental activist, serving as an Oceana ambassador and UNESCO Champion of the Ocean and Youth. Beyond that, she’s penned several children’s books, the second of which, Maya Makes Waves, is out now.
Maya also has a documentary coming out, called Maya and the Wave. In it, filmmaker Stephanie Johnes followed Gabeira for nearly a decade, through some of the highest, and lowest, points of her career. Notably, Johnes was there for a catastrophic wipeout in 2013 that almost killed Maya and turned her into a lightning rod for surfers’ attitudes towards women in big wave surfing. The movie is currently making the festival circuit.
I spoke to Maya to ask about the dizzying highs and crushing lows that have marked her formidable career.
What was it like having somebody there documenting your greatest successes and some of the most traumatic parts of your life?
Well, obviously, at some point [Stephanie Johnes and I] became friends, because that’s what happens after, you know, eight to 10 years together. Steph was always very intimate and worked very lightly, so it wasn’t very complicated to do it, but yeah, she happened to be there on a lot of the ups and then a lot of the downs, too, even more so. She got to see it firsthand, sometimes.
In an interview you mentioned that you told her not to come out to Nazare to see your season, and then she snuck out and took the house next to you.
Yeah, totally. She did that. In 2017, after it’s been like, I don’t know, maybe four years [since the 2013 wipeout]. I didn’t really want to have the pressure of the movie. I was coming to my first fully physically healthy season, but I was still pretty traumatized. Having her just added to the pressure and I kind of called it off and yeah, she snuck in.
That was around when you were diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. What was it like, learning about that, off this major physical injury you’d been recovering from? What was your reaction to having another thing to deal with?
Yeah, definitely if you look at it that way, it was frustrating to go past such a big blockage, which was the physical capacity to surf big waves again, and then to get to a point where my mind started blocking me.
That had some frustrations for sure, but then also looking at it from a bigger perspective, I’d taken care of my body for so many years, and I didn’t do the same kind of work in my mind. When it was time to go back, it was just natural that the mind would ask for help, you know?
I imagine it must be kind of freeing, because now you have a game plan to help yourself.
Exactly. That’s the beauty of it, you know. You’re much more aware. You know how it comes, when it comes, what you can do for it. Then you start developing even more tools and becoming more aware of it. So, yeah, it tends to make the whole issue better as well.
Photo: Abrams Books
There’s this theme in your career of having to deal with criticism from other professional surfers, especially men. How did that affect your relationship with surfing and how did it affect the way you surfed?
I don’t know if it affects the way I surf at all, to be honest. I think it definitely creates doubt in your mind. You have to dig deep and be so sure and really believe in yourself. Those kind of criticisms from people like that make you doubt yourself. That’s just a natural thing. Then you have to fight against that.
Watching interviews, you were treated so differently from your peers. What do you think drives the difference in reaction that a lot of big wave surfers, especially the old-school ones, have towards women?
It’s an environment that used to, or still does in a way, glorifies the image of strength and adrenaline. We used to have an image of how we should look, to surf those waves, and I think when you break that stereotype it’s always hard for people to wrap their heads around that.
So I think it was just kind of that shock, of “What is this girl doing here?” a lot of times. And now you don’t have that anymore. You have girls doing really well in heavy waves and it’s much more [an environment of] people mentoring those girls than it is judgment. It was a different time.
A big part of your advocacy for yourself and for women’s surfing was getting the WSL and Guinness to acknowledge the world’s biggest wave record. Was that also a way to silence critics?
No, I think it was more a way to recognize it and establish the platform and have a starting point to grow from there.
I was always a fan of the world record for men. I grew up with Carlos [Burle], with his world record. I remember in 2001, listening to the story when I was like 15 at some random competition in Brazil. The world record was a big deal for me, and I deeply thought women should have access to that and should have their own to aim for.
So how did it feel when you finally got that world record and were recognized by Guinness?
It was supposed to be a celebration, but it was more just like this weight off my shoulders. Because at that point, it was such a fight and so much politics and so much back and forth.
To me, the hardest thing was just to surf again. Those were three spine surgeries and a trauma for life, and here I was trying to surf giant waves again, so to me that was the challenge. Then when I realized that I still had eight months of political challenge, it just broke me. So by the time they gave me that thing, I was just like, “Oh, God, can we move on and go surfing?”
Photo: Abrams Books
It sounds like since you came back and got the record, you don’t necessarily have to prove yourself anymore. Now you can focus on the surfing itself.
Yeah, I feel [that was true] for me in a bigger sense, because there’s the record, but then just the ability of getting back and enjoying something that became a memory of pain for a long time. I think that to me was the biggest question and that was my biggest fear, to not be able to get back that sensation that I loved.
With the reaction of other surfers to the 2013 Teahupo’o wipeouts, did it feel like you kind of weren’t allowed to fail?
Yes.
That seems like it would just make training and progression difficult, because failure is part of learning.
Yeah, the thing was about deconstructing failure itself. I truly embody the fact that failure was lessons, and I needed to learn. Nobody could really judge me for wanting to learn.
So that, I think, was my main point, that nobody knew better than me. I should be capable of making my own judgments. I feel like I didn’t have a lot of room for failure and that was hard, because it’s not a failure, it’s just a lesson. You improve on that and it goes on. But I doubted myself quite a bit.
Photo: Abrams Books
Do you still ever struggle with doubt?
No, not of that kind. I think time, more experience, more surfing, being able to come back from the injuries, I think that brought me back the confidence.
It must have been tough, because of the reaction – people were telling you to quit surfing because of the wipeouts. Everybody wipes out, that’s part of surfing.
I wonder what it was that was so bad that I was the one that had to stop? Yeah, I don’t know.
Well, you got everybody to shut up. Nobody can criticize you now.
I think I made it through the other side, you know? I think that’s the beauty of it. If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. I think it’s definitely one of those. I’m sure that’s part of my trajectory and my learning and some of my success.
