“If you continue to do what you’re doing, you’re
gonna die. So I highly suggest you stop,” said Kelly Slater.
The Brazilian big-wave chaser Maya Gabeira, famous for
being advised by Kelly Slater and Laird Hamilton to quit
big-wave surfing before she or someone close to her died,
has officially quit competitive surfing.
The creator of the K2 Big-Wave Challenge and, more recently, the
Big Wave Challenge, Bill Sharp, reported the news on Instagram.
“Congratulations to @maya on her retirement from competitive big
wave surfing. She broke barriers and overcame adversity like no one
else in the game. Thank you Maya Gabeira for your many
contributions to the sport!”
Gabeira, thirty-seven, is noted for a few things, apart from the
being the recipient of well-meaning counsel from the surfing’s two
biggest stars.
She is in the Guinness Book of World Records for biggest wave
ridden by a gal, busted a leg and drowned (revived!) at Nazaré, was
belted to within an inch of her life at big Teahupoo,
and is the daughter of a Brazilian
revolutionary whose group famously kidnapped the US
ambassador.
In a now famous DM to Maya Gabeira from Kelly Slater he
wrote,
‘You are unprepared. You are endangering people around you when
they have to go in and rescue in such scenarios. I think if
you continue to do what you’re doing, you’re gonna die. So I highly
suggest you stop.’
When she got her stilt snapped at Nazaré and had to be revived
on the beach, Laird said she “didn’t have the skill to be surfing
in those conditions.”
After the leg break and temp drowning at Nazaré, I interviewed
Gabeira shortly after she got out of hozzy.
Reprinted below if you’ve got time to kill and you want to read
an 11-year-old interview.
Can you describe for me the jam y’got in… Yeah,
Carlos towed me into a really nice big left and on the third bump I
reckon I broke my ankle. When I fell that wipeout was ok. It was a
little bit of a hold-down. The second one was pretty strong and the
third one I think I was almost on the shorebreak and that was when
the problems started because it was really strong. It hit me on my
chest and it blew out my life jacket and it really hurt me. I went
down, down, down underwater with no air and seeing black. I was
basically going to black-out and somehow I made it up but when I
hit the surface everything went white so I didn’t have any vision.
But from what I saw on the footage, Carlos came twice to grab me
but I had no movement or reaction. Finally he yelled at me to grab
the rope and I grabbed the rope and I think that was my last little
bit of energy to get me maybe five or 10 feet away from the current
that was taking me into the rocks. But because I was being dragged
my face was underwater. I was pretty much blacked-out by then and
then my hand let go of the rope. From what I saw of the footage I
was unconscious. A couple of waves went over me and Carlos found me
again and I was closer to the shore so he jumped off the ski and
dragged me to the shore and CPR’d me and…uh… thank God he brought
me back to life.
What’s your first memory after being revived?
Faces. Just people and remembering that I had almost drowned and
where I was and a lot of water, water, water. And I was throwing
up. I mean, it took a long time in my brain to come back and for me
to open my eyes but as soon as I did I kinda knew where I was
because it was so salty and it was so wet. I just could tell I had
just drowned.
And then what happened? Were you on the sand? I
was on the sand. I was starting to come back to life and a huge
surge, huge water, washed everyone again. Some guys held onto me,
Carlos and another guy. A couple of cars got washed away. It was
pretty hectic but they held onto me and then after that they CPR’d
me again, I think.
Do you remember being in the ambulance? As soon as I opened my eyes
I remember everything. Red Bull, who were on the cliff, called the
fire station so the firemen came and grabbed me.
What were you thinking about in
hospital? (Maya laughs in the breeziest and most
surprising manner) That I was just lucky to be alive and I was
lucky I train as much as I do and that I have the best partner in
the world and that our efforts at the end of the day weren’t
perfect but sometimes we make mistakes. But in the very end, we
were able to save my life. And I think that’s what matters.
What mistakes did you make? How will you hit
big waves next time after this experience? I’ll definitely use a
different life jacket because I don’t want my life jacket to blow
out. I don’t want to get 70-foot shorebreak waves on my head with
no life jacket. Also, to have a second ski so everything’s not on
Carlos’ hands because that’s a big responsibility if you’re dealing
with 80-foot waves on a shorebreak. If everything you’ve got is one
ski, even though he wants to save me as much as he wants, he can’t
lose the ski. So there’s two worries there. If you have a second
ski, you can risk a little more when the rescue happens. Other than
that, I broke my leg on the wave, I just did my very best to get as
close to the shore as I could so I could get rescued by him and
hope to get CPR’d on the beach.
What’s it feel like when your leg gets busted by a wave? (Laughs!)
Oh, I don’t even realise my leg was broken until later on.
(Laughs!) My life was way more important! My lungs were way sorer
than that!
Can you describe what it’s like to drown? It’s
really tough. But it gets peaceful when you black out. When you’re
gone, you’re gone. And I knew before I was gone I knew that the
only thing I could do was to try my very hardest to get as close as
I could to the shore so Carlos could do his part. And I did my part
and he did his part. That’s how we work. I try my best and when he
sees me he’ll make sure he doesn’t lose my body.
It’s a high-stakes game, ain’t it… Yeah, but
that’s big-wave surfing when it’s 80-feet in the shorebreak, a
beach break.
You had another near-death thang at Teahupoo,
yeah? Um, to be honest, I must put down that experience a
little bit after this one. I don’t think it was that bad…
But only with the benefit of hindsight… Yeah, I
think this one was way more serious. People say I was unconscious
at Teahupoo, and I wasn’t at all, I told everyone I wasn’t, but a
lot of people claim that I was unconscious and it was a lie. But
this time… I was unconscious.
Big-wave wrangling is an extraordinary biz… You
know, it’s a risk when you’re willing to surf waves like that and
you don’t have two people to rescue you, you only have one. I was
by myself on 70, 80-foot waves for over 10 minutes. And it’s very
very hard to survive with no life jacket.
