For her thousands of fans, it’s a golden deja vu: Hawaii’s Carissa Kainani Moore, reigning women’s world surfing champion for the second year in a row, will be wearing the yellow leader’s jersey on finals day at Lower Trestles, Calif., when she seeks to clinch her sixth world title.

The holding period for the women’s and men’s championship showdowns goes today through Sept. 18.

“I’m excited for the finals and look forward to giving it my all at one of my favorite spots,” said a relaxed and smiling Moore, fresh out of the ocean, in a Zoom interview from her Honolulu home on Aug. 31.

She spent eight months traveling from Hawaii to such far-flung, sometimes lonely places as Portugal, Australia, El Salvador, Brazil, South Africa and Tahiti.

“For this event, I’ll have a good amount of friends and family who are going to come, so regardless of the result it’ll be super special,” she said.

After winning the first-ever Olympic gold medal for surfing last summer, Moore won her fifth world title in September wearing the gold jersey at Trestles in an entirely new, winner-take-all format, fielding only five women and five men. Previously, champions had been decided on the basis of accumulated points.

This year heaped on more pressure. The finalists come off a ramped-up season of 10 pre-final events (compared with seven last year); a new, midseason cut of half the surfers from each division; and, for the women, the addition of Banzai Pipeline, Sunset Beach and Teahupo‘o to their tour.

“I didn’t have too many expectations going into this season,” Moore said of dealing with the changes. “I felt like last year was a really big year, I was on top of the world. Really stoked.”

Following her banner year, she found herself caught up in a whirlwind offseason filled with media and sponsor obligations. She said it would normally be a “time to rest and reset and figure out what my next game plan is.

“This season I kinda just went straight into it, finding my footing and continuing to evolve as events went on.”

After brilliant performances on this year’s tour by fellow islanders Gabriela Bryan, John John Florence, Barron Mamiya, Seth Moniz, Malia Manuel, Sakura Johnson, Betty Luana Silva, Malia Jones Wong and Ezekiel Lau, Moore is the only Hawaii surfer left standing for finals day.

Asked how that felt, the good sportswoman gently offered a more inclusive perspective.

“I was just talking to my dad in the car, about how Brisa (Hennessy, from Costa Rica) and Tati (Tatiana Weston-Webb, from Brazil) both grew up in Hawaii, so I consider them Hawaiian at heart,” Moore said of two of the other surfers in the women’s top five.

“And so maybe they’re not wearing the Hawaiian flag, but it’s pretty cool to see how well our state and islands are being represented.”

Then the founder of the nonprofit Moore Aloha, which aims to help girls develop strength and self-love through surfing, spoke up for all of the women on tour. “I’m really proud of the women and how we’ve taken on this season,” she said. “I don’t know if anyone understands how difficult it is to have new venues put into the mix and a new format, with the cut, and I thought the girls really did a great job of stepping up, setting a great tone. And it’s only going to evolve and progress from here.”

In the final at Trestles, the four other women who made the final cut will compete for who gets to face off against Moore in the championship heats: the winner of two out of three heats will take the title.

In the first heat, world No. 4 Hennessy will compete with world No. 5 and seven-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore of Australia. The winner of that heat will take on world No. 3 Weston-Webb, and the next winner will face world No. 2 Johanne Defay of France.

The men’s contenders will be Brazil’s Filipe Toledo (No. 1), Australia’s Jack Robinson (2) Ethan Ewing (3), Brazil’s Italo Ferreira (4) and Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi (5), a Southern California native.

Is it Moore’s ultimate goal to break the seven-title record shared by Gilmore and countrywoman Layne Beachley?

She paused with the look of concentration she often wears with her headphones on while waiting for her next heat to be called.

“These sorts of questions started coming in at the end of last year,” Moore said, “and I just never started this journey with wanting to win the most world titles ever. It’s cool if it happens, but to win a world title is extremely hard and takes a lot of time, effort and commitment, not only from yourself but from a village, there are all these different factors, and all the girls on tour want it just as much.”

As for her next decade, “I feel I’m closer to the end of my career than the beginning,” she said. “I used to be fresh and young, and I’ll be wanting to switch gears at some point, but I don’t know when that will be, and retirement is not in the cards any time soon.”

When she turned 30 on Aug. 27, Moore posted a light-hearted photo of herself wearing a curly blonde “auntie” wig on her Instagram feed.

“Actually a few years ago, I had people calling me ‘auntie,’ so I’m like, I’m going to just embrace it,” she said.

Not that she feels any different, engaged as she is in a sport that immerses her in the constantly changing sea and where “every year is different, as much as you think, ‘OK, I have this figured out,’” Moore said with a laugh.

To find out when finals day is called on, check worldsurfleague.com to watch it livestreaming and on Spectrum surf cable channel 20.