“I’m the only woman out here, gotta give it a go…”
One year ago, the former women’s world junior champ Laura Enever laid claim to riding the biggest wave ever paddled into by a woman.
Laura Enever, who is thirty-two and who learned and polished her formidable skills at Sydney’s North Narrabeen, was the second alternate to compete in last year’s The Eddie Invitational, which was won by the on-duty North Shore lifeguard Luke Shepardson.
She didn’t get to write a little history at that event but just south of the action at Waimea Bay, Luke Enever paddled out to the same lefthander where the late Sion Milosky rode the biggest men’s paddle wave back in 2010.
Now, Laura Enever has stunned the surf world by riding, alongside a cavalcade of the world’s best big-wave surfers, a hall-of-fame swell at Cloudbreak, an outer-reef that was once an imperialist American outpost in Fiji’s Mamanuca Islands.
In a twelve-foot swell that would’ve given even the men’s Gen Z world champion Filipe Toledo pause, Laura Enever dressed herself in a padded suit and dived headlong into the Pacific, her POV camera giving the viewer at home an unparalleled glimpse into the madness.
She don’t hesitate. Nothing worries or dulls Laura Enever’s vital edge. Bullshit-proof.
Straight into a set. Slapped at the end of a barrel.
Later, kneecapped on a set and wears a monster four-wave pack on her head.
Essential.
