HANALEI, Kaua'i — It's been a long journey for Bethany Hamilton from shark attack victim to professional surfer, one she's taken a step at a time.

Bethany was surfing with friends at dawn on Oct. 31, 2003, at the Tunnels surf break in Ha'ena when a large shark bit off most of her left arm.

Fellow surfer Holt Blanchard, her best friend's father, used a surf leash as a tourniquet to stem the bleeding as he helped her to shore.

Bethany was back in the water surfing less than a month after the attack.

"Since the attack, when I started surfing again, I started off just having fun with it — I always have fun with surfing," she said last week. "But I started to get better and get back to the level of competing and started competing."

Bethany won the National Scholastic Surfing Association championship eight months after the shark attack. She reaped an ESPY award for best comeback athlete and an MTV Teen Choice Award for courage.

From there, she sampled a few pro contests in 2006, and a few more last year.

"It was kind of like just play it day by day," Bethany said of her progress. "I wasn't, like, pro-pro-pro-pro, like thinking pro constantly."

"I'm just trying to do what I think God wants me to do," said Bethany, who sees her faith as a Christian and her job as a surfer as intertwined.

"God created the heavens and the earth, and the oceans and the waves and the art of surfing and gave it to us for our enjoyment. It's just my way of worshiping him," she said.

Bethany is moving up in the national rankings and has won the admiration of her fellow surfers.

"She blows my mind," former pro surfer Jodi Cooper said in a contest news release after seeing Bethany take third place in the Roxy Pro Women's Surfing Festival in January at Phillip Island, Australia. "I don't think a lot of people fathom the effort this young lady goes through not only to paddle out, but the technique it takes to stand up and then once she's up, the balance and body rotation she demonstrates to complete those big turns."

Bethany's coach, Russell Lewis, recalls paddling with one arm to find ways to help his pupil relearn surfing after losing her arm. But it turned out "she had it down. She'd developed her own technique far better than anything I could come up with," Lewis said.

"She's a step above most surfers."

Lewis recalls first noticing Bethany and her friend Alana Blanchard "when they were 5 or 6. They were extremely strong for such young children. You could look at these two and know they were going to be trouble when they got older."

Bethany's blend of athleticism and spirit have always been a potent combination, Lewis says.

"If I asked her to run the beach once, she'd say, 'Why not twice?' and do it," he said of her time on the Hanalei Surf Team.

Lewis predicts "a big career ahead of her. The only thing that will stop her is if she loses interest. If she stays the way she is now, I think she'll be the world champion with one arm.

"A coach is only as good as the people they're working with. And she's top quality clay."

To become a world champion, Bethany must pass through at least a year competing in the Association of Surfing Professionals' qualifying contests, the minor leagues of pro surfing.

Being ranked in the top five after a year in the women's qualifying contests would earn her a slot the following year on the ASP women's world tour.

Since Bethany just turned 18 in February — the minimum age to win pro events — this year is her first crack at it.

If she doesn't make it on her first try, multiple years in the qualifying tour is no shame.

The only other Hawai'i woman in the top 10 is Bethany's lifetime surfing buddy Blanchard, who is ranked sixth.

Bethany and Alana Blanchard, who was with her the morning Bethany lost her arm, both plan to attend meets this year in Brazil, South Africa, California, Portugal and Spain. The final stop on the pro qualifying series is Ali'i Beach in Hale'iwa in November.