Professional surfing isn't a career Imojen Enfield wants to pursue too seriously.
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It's why the 15-year-old Port Macquarie goofy-footer surprised everyone - including herself - when she progressed through four heats on the way to a third-place finish at North Stradbroke Island on December 3.
Imojen registered four second-place results during the heats despite challenging conditions where there wasn't a lot of swell on offer.
"I feel I got a bit lucky; the ocean was on my side in some of the heats," she said.
"The waves were terrible so it was just who could manage to do something on each wave."
She admitted all the practice on small waves in Port Macquarie had paid off although she felt there was still a lot of room for improvement.
"I personally felt I didn't surf my best, but there's always next year or another comp and I was happy with how it turned out," the teenager said.
"I tried to get in a good, positive mindset for my heats and looked at what the waves were doing, but because it was bad you had to really keep a good mindset to perform.
"But I didn't really have a heat strategy."
Queenslander Coco Cairns only caught two waves in the final, but it was enough for her to progress to the world stage with a two-wave score of 15.00.
Imojen's two-wave score of 8.90 handed her a top-three finish in the under-18 division in Australia.
"It's the highest-level competition I've ever done so it was pretty cool to get into the final and it was a good experience all in all," she said.
"I'll reset, keep training and get ready for the 2023 season. I don't know how many comps I'll do, but I just want to keep training and getting better for whatever comes my way."
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