Gabeira is the super woman of surfing

She'd moved from Brazil to Hawaii and had become passionately addicted to surfing large waves.

"Waimea was the first huge wave I ever saw, and I just felt that was what I wanted to do for my life," she says.

She'd ridden Waimea Bay, but not during one of those epic swells, when Oahu's entire North Shore falls under a booming assault that separates men from boys and transforms virtually all women into spectators.

She arrived in time to witness a gigantic set of waves breaking clear across the bay, blitzing the paddling channel. This occurs only when wave faces surpass 50 feet.

Gabeira was terrified. But friends told her the closeout sets were 30 minutes apart, so off she hustled, eventually gaining the lineup, where she bobbed like a tiny cork astride her 10-foot-4 gun.

"I caught four waves in four hours," she boasts. "And one was my very best wave, and I remember when I came in I was so high. And I think I was high for like 10 days."

The striking Gabeira had, at 18, become a bona fide big-wave surfer. She went on to tackle Maverick's near Half Moon Bay and Dungeons off South Africa.

Last summer she graduated to the daredevil sport of tow surfing, where jet-skis and ropes are used to pull surfers onto larger and faster waves, with fellow Brazilian Carlos Burle as partner and mentor.

That led to a trip to Teahupoo in Tahiti, where she overcame a savage wipeout to conquer some of the most dangerous waves on earth.Tonight Gabeira, who turned 21 on Thursday, will be one of three women honored during the Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards at the Grove of Anaheim. Gabeira is heavily favored to win the Women's Overall Performance award for the second consecutive year.

"She's shattered every barrier women's surfing has known when it comes to big waves," says Bill Sharp, director of the yearlong contest. "She routinely rides waves bigger than 99.9% of the men in the surfing world would ride."

And to think hers is a story that might not be told, were it not for a turbulent life as a child.

Her father, Fernando Paulo Nagle Gabeira, is a longtime Brazilian politician best-known for writing the 1979 book, "O que e isso companheiro?" or "What are you doing, comrade?"