Sharks and Nature Cooperate for Solo Cuba-to-Florida Swim
Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau, via Associated Press
Kayakers helped escort Diana
Nyad about two miles off of Key West, Fla., on her way to becoming the
first swimmer to cross the 110-mile Florida Straits without the
protection of a shark cage.
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Published: September 2, 2013
MIAMI — This time, nature tipped its hat, and Diana Nyad finally
conquered the 110-mile passage from Cuba to Florida that had bedeviled
her for 35 years.
Related
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Marathon Swimmer Diana Nyad Takes On the Demons of the Sea (December 4, 2011)
Andrew Innerarity/Reuters
Spectators surrounded Ms. Nyad as she reached the shore of Key West, Fla.
J Pat Carter/Associated Press
Ms. Nyad hugged her friend Bonnie Stoll after making it ashore.
Andrew Innerarity/Reuters
Spectators in Key West, Fla., cheered Ms. Nyad at the end of her 53-hour swim from Havana.
Sharks steered clear, currents were friendly, and storms took most of the Labor Day weekend off.
The 64-year-old endurance swimmer emerged dazed and sunburned from the
surf on Smathers Beach in Key West, Fla., just before 2 p.m. on Monday
after nearly 53 hours in the ocean, a two-day, two-night swim from her
starting point in Havana. She had survived the treacherous Florida
Straits, a notorious stretch of water brimming with sharks, jellyfish,
squalls and an unpredictable Gulf Stream. And she became the first
person to do so unaided by the protection of a shark cage.
It was her fifth attempt, coming after four years of grueling training,
precision planning and single-minded determination. Her face scorched
and puffy from so many hours in the salt water, she leaned on one of her
friends and said from the beach:
“I have three messages. One is we should never, ever give up. Two is you
never are too old to chase your dreams. Three is it looks like a
solitary sport, but it takes a team.”
Coming at an age when few people try to set endurance records, Ms.
Nyad’s swim lit up Twitter and Facebook with postings about perseverance
and grit, including a tweet from President Obama: “Congratulations to
Diana Nyad. Never give up on your dreams.”
Ms. Nyad’s success was built on her failures — the first in 1978, when
she was 28, and the most recent last year at age 62. After each attempt,
she improvised, learning what to adjust, whom to consult and which new
protective protocol to consider.
“Diana did her homework,” said Bonnie Stoll, Ms. Nyad’s friend and chief
handler, shortly after Ms. Nyad completed her swim.
Two summers ago, she was felled midswim by a long asthma attack, her
first ever. This year, she added a pulmonologist to her 35-member
support team, Ms. Stoll said.
Box jellyfish, which are especially venomous, have been a constant
source of danger; Ms. Nyad was stung so badly on previous swims she had
to stop. To break that cycle, she found an expert on box jellyfish this
year to help her contain the threat.
In the evenings, Ms. Nyad donned a special suit with long sleeves and
pant legs to protect her. She slathered “sting stopper” gel to form a
barrier to keep out the venom. On Saturday night, she also wore a
special mask that covered her face. But the mask proved uncomfortable,
cutting her mouth and tongue so badly, and impeding her breathing, that
she discarded it after the first night.
The course was mostly clear of box jellyfish this time. When she finally
encountered a cluster, it was on her approach to Key West. The shark
divers swam ahead of Ms. Nyad to disperse the swarm.
In 2011, Ms. Nyad decided to use a team of shark divers who carried
special zappers to ward off the predators. Trial and error also
presented new options. She learned which wet suits were more forgiving
on her skin in saltwater and which special drinks and nutrition gels
best fueled her. (She ingested them, sometimes through a tube, while
treading water.)
But there were two things Ms. Nyad could not control: the weather and the current. This time, both cooperated.
“I think that Mother Nature said, ‘You know what? Let her go,’ ” Ms. Stoll said.
Unlike past swims derailed by squalls that pushed her off course, only
one storm hit this weekend. It came on Sunday night and lasted a little
under 90 minutes, Ms. Stoll said. Ms. Nyad followed her protocol and
swam through it, accompanied by shark divers.
Sharks, always a menace, were nowhere to be seen this time.
The favorable currents carried her along so swiftly that Ms. Nyad
finished her swim a day earlier than expected, Ms. Stoll said. On
average, Ms. Nyad swims about 1.6 miles an hour. With the current
propelling her, she cruised at 5 m.p.h. during one stretch, Ms. Stoll
said, adding, “Everything was in our favor.”
To help her focus, Ms. Nyad relied, as she always has, on her favorite
songs. Over and over, she hums them in her head, her strokes falling in
time with the music’s cadence: “Ticket to Ride” by the Beatles echoed on
one stretch, “Paperback Writer” on another.
“Swimming is the ultimate form of sensory deprivation,” Ms. Nyad said in
the month before her 2011 swim. “You are left alone with your thoughts
in a much more severe way.”
Through the years, others have tried to swim from Cuba to Key West and
failed. In June, an Australian, Chloe McCardel, swam 11 hours and 14
miles before jellyfish stings forced her to stop.
In 2012, another Australian, Penny Palfrey, swam 79 miles until strong
currents waylaid her. In 1978, Walter Poenisch, an Ohio man, said he
made the swim using flippers and a snorkel, but he lacked independent
documentation to verify it.
Susie Maroney did complete the swim in 1997, but she did so inside a
shark cage that was being pulled by a boat, providing a draft that made
swimming much easier. The first time Ms. Nyad attempted the swim, in
1978, she also used a shark cage. She did not use a shark cage this
time.
Whenever Ms. Nyad scrambled, heartbroken and exhausted, onto a boat
after a failed attempt, she vowed it would be her last. “It was a fairy
tale,” she said after her second attempt, in August 2011, “but the fairy
tale didn’t come true.”
After last summer, Ms. Stoll said she was convinced that the Florida
Straits were unswimmable. “I thought it wasn’t humanly possible or she
would have done it,” Ms. Stoll said. “I was glad to be wrong.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:Correction: September 2, 2013
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the time of Diana Nyad’s arrival from Cuba on a beach in Key West, Fla. The swimmer arrived just before 2 p.m. on Monday, not at 1:20 p.m.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/sports/nyad-completes-cuba-to-florida-swim.html
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