• Submitted by: manso
• Sports
• 08 / 25 / 2010

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KEY WEST — It's Aug. 15, 1978, and Diana Nyad is in distress, slamming into 8-foot waves, bobbing in the tumultuous open waters of the Florida Straits. She's in a shark cage and has been swimming for 41 hours, 39 minutes, since she waded into the surf near Bahía Honda, Cuba.

She is shivering. Her muscles are fatigued. Her lips and tongue are severely swollen from the saltwater. She has jellyfish stings. She is dry-heaving. She is hallucinating that she is surrounded by barracudas. And the strong currents have forced her and her support boat, Follow the Sun, way off course. She's more than 60 miles from her target, the Florida Keys, and her trainer and navigator are suggesting she call it quits.

The plan was a world-record 103-mile swim in roughly 60 hours. Mother Nature got in the way. Nyad, a successful marathon swimmer, wants to keep going. She calls it her "personal Olympics," says nothing but a hurricane could stop her. But she finally concedes and aborts her dream. Her heart sinks as her friends lift her into the boat and applaud.

Thirty-two years later, Nyad, who turned 61 on Aug. 15, will attempt to conquer the swim that defeated her.

She is in Key West with most of her 24-person support group (captain, crew, doctor, nutritionist, navigator, meteorologist, close friends), itching to go, awaiting travel visas from the Cuban government. She has been ready for more than a month, since she completed an 80-mile, 24-hour test swim off the Keys on July 10. Waiting has been torture and wreaked havoc with her training. She compares it to a tennis player at Wimbledon, in peak condition, waiting out a rain delay indefinitely.

Timing is critical for this swim. By mid-September, weather and water conditions will worsen.

"Currents are flowing in the right direction. Gulf waters are super warm. Visas, visas, Oh where are my Cuban travel visas?" she wrote on Twitter on Thursday afternoon.

Nyad didn't swim a single lap for three decades, from 1979-2009. "Major burnout," explains the International Swimming Hall of Fame inductee, who kept busy as a journalist, speaker and radio commentator. "Couldn't pay me to get in the water."

So, why now? What would drive a human being to battle time and the elements and revisit a journey that seemed impossible at 29?

"Existential angst," she says, laughing and brimming with energy. "It's not like I spent the last 30 years obsessing about this. It's not a weighty regret. It's about turning 60. I never had a problem with age 55, 59, it was all fine. But there was something about turning 60 that pissed me off.

"I'm still young, passionate, vibrant. Still relevant. But society doesn't always treat us that way. In some professions, you are forced to retire at 62. I was experiencing what millions my age are feeling — no longer valued, worried the best years are behind, that it's all downhill from here. I'm here to empower people my age, to prove you are never too old to chase a dream.

"Nobody's going to see this and say, 'Hey, I'm going to swim from Cuba to Miami.' But when I get to that shore, I want all the baby boomers and AARP members to look at that and say, 'Hey, I'm a 60-year-old closet writer and it's time to finally write that book.' Or, 'Hey, I've been bored all my life because I had to take over Dad's business, but I really love carpentry, so I'm going to sign up for a class and make that coffee table I've dreamed about.'"

Sixty is not old. It's not too late. That is Nyad's mantra.

She is heavier (145 pounds) and slower (2 mph) than she was at 28, but says her strokes are more powerful now. "Life power," she calls it. And she is bound and determined to finish what she started in August 1978.

She began quietly training a year ago, and in January embarked on her first long swim off the coast of Mexico. The surf was huge. The water was colder than she expected. But she did it. Six and a half hours.

"I knew when I completed that swim that I had it in me," she said.

She has raised more than $200,000 from sponsors and private donors. This time, she will not use a shark cage. Instead, she will have a team of professional kayakers alongside her, and each kayak is equipped with a 4-pound electronic shark repelling device. The device, used by commercial divers, creates an electronic field 13 feet in diameter and discourages sharks from getting close.

"I'm not scared," she said. "Yeah, there are tiger sharks, lemon sharks, and they have been known to come up close, but I trust the people around me. They're all pros. I don't see anything when I'm swimming. People always ask me, 'Oh, do you see the coral reefs? The pretty fish?' I don't. I'm not out for a snorkel. I actually love swimming in the dark of night. I feel like a stealth vessel making quick time in the night."

Nyad will consume 800 to 1,000 calories per hour during the swim, and still plans to lose 20 pounds in the process. Her support crew will hand her spoonfuls of peanut butter with honey, hard-boiled eggs, nutrition bars and sports drinks.

Asked what she thinks about as she paddles hour after hour, she tries to explain what it's like to be in a metronomic state, goggles fogged over, head turning 60 times per minute, ears covered by a swim cap. "You are in a state of sensory deprivation, and you get into a left brain-right brain thing. One minute, I'm pondering the meaning of the universe, how the ocean stays on the Earth, whether God exists, and the next I am remembering the theme songs of my favorite sitcoms. Sometimes, you fall into full-fledged hallucinations. But the more lucid you can remain, the better."

Nyad, a Los Angeles resident, could have chosen any stretch of water for this journey. She chose this one because she considers it "magical." Growing up in Fort Lauderdale in the 1960s and 1970s, Nyad had a lot of Cuban friends. She has always been fascinated with Cuba and Cuban culture, and she has visited the island on goodwill sports missions. She even read "The Communist Manifesto" to try to understand Fidel Castro's politics.

She says she is not making a political statement with her swim, but she does hope it can help open dialogue. She said the Cuban authorities would have preferred that she swim toward the island rather than away from it, as it may be construed as symbolic of the Cubans who flee the island. But she explained she could swim only in one direction because of the strong currents in the Gulf Stream.

Cuba has such great music, architecture, music, art, athletes, intellectuals, and it's a shame we don't share with them. I think the embargo should end. They're so close to us, and yet so isolated. I hope my swim can show how close we really are.

Source: www.sun-sentinel.com/