
Maya Gabeira is hanging up the spurs after decades of charging. Photos: Red Bull Content Pool

Maya Gabeira is an icon in the surfing world, but she has decided it’s time to hang up the spurs and retire from professional surfing.
“Thank you big wave surfing,” she wrote in her retirement announcement on Instagram. “Thank you professional surfing. Thank you all! And life whispered to me: ‘what are you waiting for? Maya, you can let go now. You have survived. And now you are Ready to LIVE!'”
Bill Sharp, big wave legend in his own right, recently congratulated her on her exit. “Congratulations to @maya on her retirement from competitive big wave surfing,” Sharp wrote on Instagram. “She broke barriers and overcame adversity like no one else in the game. Thank you Maya Gabeira for your many contributions to the sport!”
The surfing world is a small one, but Gabeira is one of the few who have broken out of it to become a household name. She’s the proud owner of two Guinness world records, five Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards, the WSL’s XXL Biggest Wave Award, an ESPY, and even a Teen Choice award.
While Gabeira’s exploits at waves like Nazaré were well known to surfers, the wider world really noticed her when she nearly died at that famous Portuguese wave. The footage was terrifying and came with a whole pile of misguided backlash from people like Kelly Slater and Laird Hamilton, but she bounced back.
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Gabeira moved to Hawaii from Brazil — after a brief stint in Australia — when she was 17. She did it with a purpose: to become one of the best big wave surfers in the world. Then she met Carlos Burle and things really began to run on all cylinders.
“I got into big waves when I was 18,” she told me in 2013. “I started traveling with Carlos, following him and using his experience to figure out where it was going to be good.”
When they met, it was just a year after she had committed herself to chasing big waves. Burle knew there was something about her that would take her far, as long as she was under the right tutelage.
“She was only 19. I didn’t know her that well, but I’d surfed with her a few times in Hawaii, and I could tell from her reactions on waves that she knew what she was doing,” Burle remembered. “She had good confidence, and she looked like she was having fun. That’s when I thought, ‘I think I can work with this girl.’”
As she rose through the ranks in the big wave circuit, she not only amassed more experience, knowledge, awards, and status, but she also amassed more brutal wipeouts. It’s part and parcel of the big wave game, but Gabeira was taken to task more often than not for her perceived lack of skills. Despite that scrutiny, she put her head down and proved she had what it took until there was nothing else to prove.
“I don’t know if it affects the way I surf at all, to be honest,” she told The Inertia‘s Cooper Gegan when asked whether criticism had an effect on her surfing. “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.”
While Gabeira may not have competed as much as someone like a Championship Tour surfer, she was a standout in most big wave contests she entered, and annually during global big wave video awards. She last won at Nazare, a year ago at the 2024 Big Wave Challenge. As we’ve seen many times before, though, “retirement” in surfing doesn’t mean the end of the surfer surfing. It’ll be interesting to watch the next move in her career.
“Now, I am ready to move forward and continue serving and living a purposeful life. I hope to impact more people’s lives,” Gabeira said. “I think that’s why I’m here. We’re here to change ourselves. Hopefully, that can lead others to change themselves. I got into surfing to understand myself and for the freedom it gave me. And I am stepping away from surfing feeling so free, with my mind so free, with my heart so full. I have no regrets. I know I chose the right career. In the early years of my life, I was wise when I left home as a teenager, not knowing what the heck I was going to do but feeling my heart beat for surfing. I was blessed. Thank you for being part of it.”