Basque Hellman Natxo González Joins Oxbow

According to Natxo González, “Eighty percent of big wave surfing is in the head.” Little did he know how prophetic those words would become.

It was May 2021. “I was surfing big Puerto on a 9’6, thinking I was about to get the best barrel of my life. As I pumped through the tube, the foam ball hit me so hard in the face that I almost passed out,” Natxo said. The impact left him with headaches, dizziness, vomiting, and disorientation, leading him to take a couple of months off from surfing to recover.

That November, Natxo dropped into a wave at Nazaré and cartwheeled down the face. He experienced tremors, temporary vision loss, and ended up being rescued by Twiggy. In the following months, he suffered from recurring headaches, vomiting, and blurred vision.

Despite the setbacks, Natxo made a comeback, winning the 2022 Quemao Class in Lanzarote. However, the victory felt hollow. Depression set in, followed by a period of intense migraines that left him bedridden in darkness. Of those times, Natxo said, “I didn’t feel like a surfer. Surfing wasn’t even a goal. My only ambition was to someday sit down and have coffee with a friend without feeling pain.”

It wasn’t until he watched Are You Serious?, the Stab documentary about Sterling Spencer’s recovery from a traumatic brain injury, that he decided to seek professional help. After consulting various doctors in Spain, tests revealed slower blood flow in a part of his brain, indicating a previous concussion. The prognosis was clear: to recover, he would have to stop surfing completely.

With support from Red Bull, he traveled to Switzerland, where a team of specialists — doctors, psychiatrists, and physiotherapists — developed a comprehensive treatment and recovery plan. Gradually, his condition improved, allowing him to return to the ocean.

Now fully recovered, Natxo is back, surfing under a new insignia. He’s been signed to Oxbow, France’s original surfwear company, which has championed and supported a different breed of watermen and women for nearly 40 years. 

Natxo fits right in with a lineup that includes his close friend (who narrates his welcome edit) Kepa Acero, Miguel Blanco, Pipe Master Robbie Page, the new generation of boundary-pushers at Teahupo’o, among others. Natxo, Kepa, and Miguel already did a trip to Madagascar last month and scored a very good wave you’ve likely never seen before. Yep, film incoming.

His appetite for huge surf remains undiminished and we’re hoping to see more of Natxo in the coming Northern Hemisphere winter.