One Beach, One Story · Praia do Norte, Nazaré · October 2026 · 5 min

This Beach Nearly Killed Her. She Came Back and Took Its Record. Twice.

On 28 October 2013 Maya Gabeira was revived on the sand at Praia do Norte. In 2020, on the same beach, she rode the biggest wave anyone surfed that year.

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On 28 October 2013, at Praia do Norte in Nazaré, Maya Gabeira lost consciousness on a wave and nearly drowned. Another Brazilian big-wave surfer, Carlos Burle, got her out of the water. She had to be revived on the beach and was taken to hospital.

That is where most stories about a beach would end. This one is about what she did next, and about the beach.

This beach looks harmless in summer

Praia do Norte is the beach on the north side of Nazaré, past the lighthouse. We measured 4,110 metres of it. In summer, says the local guide, the waves are normal. People who know this beach only from August have no idea what she is like in winter, and the guide's word for the summer waves is in quotation marks.

What you cannot see from the sand is the Nazaré Canyon. It is the largest submarine canyon in Europe: about 230 kilometres long, about 5,000 metres deep, and its upper end begins roughly one kilometre off the town. It makes incoming swells pile onto one another, and the waves come out far larger than on the rest of the Portuguese coast.

This beach has depths you cannot see from the sand.

Everyone wants a piece of this beach

In November 2011 Garrett McNamara rode a wave here measured at 23.8 metres, a record. On 8 November 2017 Rodrigo Koxa took the record with a wave later confirmed at 24.38 metres. Every winter since, the best big-wave surfers in the world have turned up to try their luck with a beach that puts people in hospital.

Gabeira came back too. A 2016 documentary about it is called Return to Nazaré. In January 2018 she rode a 68-foot wave here, and Guinness World Records wrote it down as the biggest wave ever surfed by a woman.

11 February 2020

Then she broke her own record on the beach that had put her in hospital. The wave measured 73.5 feet, or 22.4 metres. It was the largest wave surfed by anyone that year. The men's award for 2020 went to a wave of 70 feet.

The beach that put her in hospital also held her record. She had to go back to take it.

This beach is not finished

Eight months later, on 29 October 2020, Sebastian Steudtner rode a wave here measured at 26.2 metres. As of 2026 that is still the world record. In February 2024 he rode one measured at 28.5 metres that has not been made official. The numbers keep going up, and this beach shows no sign of calming down.

If you go

The big waves come between October and March. The place to watch is the Fort of São Miguel Arcanjo, by the lighthouse: €2 to get in, open 10am to 6pm. Inside is a small exhibition about the canyon, with a three-dimensional model of it and the story of a German submarine, U-963, that sank off Nazaré at the end of the Second World War. On big days you park well outside and walk more than a kilometre.

You can also walk down a dirt road to the sand. The local guide's advice for that is short. Do not get close to this beach. Several tourists have drowned here, carried off the sand by waves. Maya Gabeira went back. You can stay on the hill.