Maya Gabeira is only 21 years old, and she’s not a superstar just yet. But she’s well on her way. She’s already a two-time winner of Best Female Surfer in the world.

Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Maya currently lives in Hawaii but travels the world searching for the best waves and attending surfing competitions, from South Africa to Indonesia. She started as a ballet dancer at age eleven and only began surfing at age fourteen.

Maya surfs waves so large that many times she has to be towed into the
wave by jet ski. She’s broken her nose a dozen times and split her head
open.

Her parents are proud of her and support her in her chosen career, despite the risks. However, her father can’t visit her in Hawaii because he can no longer obtain a visa to visit the U.S. That’s because Maya’s father, Fernando Gabeira, is a famous Brazilian politician who in his youth fought against the military dictatorship of the 1960s and participated in the kidnapping of then U.S. ambassador Charles Elbrick, in an effort to pressure the government to release fifteen leftist prisoners.