Last year brought on hard competition and a lot of challenges for North Narrabeen’s Miss Laura Enever, but she’s looking back at lessons learned and looking forward at good times to come.  This year has brought her the first chance to surf with the ‘Northy Girls’ at Jim Beam’s Surftag, she’s hanging up her stilettos for charity and she’s loving the AOS in her backyard. All in all, 2012 is good. Tats: The surftag was a few weeks back and you finally got to surf with your girls…

Laura: Yeah it was fun finally getting to surf with the team cause I was always too young, then I when I turned 18 I was away for two years, so it was pretty cool to get to do it this year.

Tats: The Northern Beaches has a pretty strong female surf community, you were raised (surfwise) by those women…

Laura: Yeah, North Narrabeen, we’re like a family pretty much.  I surfed with all the girls that were on the team ever since I was little.  There are a couple a girls that surf Narrabeen (Elle Northy, Belinda Hardwick) and it was really cool to get to do a comp with them as it seems like I’m always travelling these days.

I was always like the little grommet and Elle was like my big sister, I remember she was teaching me how to do a roundhouse cutback when I was 12.  She said I had to go up to the top and go ‘rroooouuunnnnndddd HOUSE’.  In my head and hold it.  I love her.

Tats: Last year compared to this year, what’d you reckon?  You had kind a hard year last year…

Laura:  I think last year was also about learning and I didn’t know what to expect, I was just going with it. I had good times, bad times, all around learning experience. I ended up finishing the year off well.  Looking back and using my mistakes to put them into this year is gonna help, it already has.

Tats: You having fun or is it a stress?

Laura:  I am having fun, it’s not stressful at all.  There’s a lot stuff going on, which sometimes gets me stressful, but surfing’s still my escape.  Jumping in the water, is still the place I go to, even getting out in a heat, is an escape from everything else.

Tats: Last night we were at the Skullcandy  party and you weren’t wearing heals…

Laura: I’m supporting a charity called Feb Free  where you give up something you love for the month of February. The last couple years, I’ve worn heels everywhere.  So I thought instead of giving up chocolate or something like that, I’d give up heels.  It’s cool to think about because there are people around the world that don’t have access to pretty clothes or shoes, so I thought it would be a cool way to bring myself back to earth a little.  We have a lot of (ASP etc) social events, like the banquet, in February, so I thought that would make it more challenging for the proper feeling of not having something.

Tats: How does it feel to see Manly transformed like this?

Laura: The parking is really stressful, ha.  No it’s been great, I’m getting a lot of local loving, which has been a really nice support. I almost lost yesterday, but came through and I’m stoked to be in the semis now and have all this support for the weekend.

This contest is incredible; it’s so good for surfing, and the skating and the music that is going to draw everyone down here.  It’s allot of cultures joined into one and it’s cool vibes for sure.

Tats: Do you think most surfers you’re competing against get to grow up with the kind of mentoring you’ve gotten from the community?

Laura:  I don’t know, I think I’m really lucky, Narrabeen is, well no one really understands unless you go there how localised, and how much a community and a family it is.  We all know each other and surf together.  I’ve got my brother behind me, and all my older brothers from Narrabeen as well, they’re always there for me, it’s rad.

It feels so nice that I have such great support, makes me feel more confident in myself that I have all this love, everyone just wants to see me succeed.  That makes me not only want to do it for myself, but do it for my beach and my community.  I think If I’d win it, it would be for the whole of Sydney.

Interview by Tatianna K Alpert

Local Focus is lovingly produced in collaboration with Little Hobo Project