Nyad makes first cuba-fla swim without a shark cage (lovely comment from cuban commodore) [View all]

[niyad]

US September 03, 2013
Nyad makes 1st Cuba-Fla. swim without a shark cage
Diana Nyad

http://i0.mail.com/978/2307978,h=425,pd=1,w=620/diana-nyad.jpg (14 images in all)

KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) — Defeated before in bids to swim from Cuba to Florida, Diana Nyad would cry and rage through swollen lips and welts at the jellyfish tentacles that had repeatedly lashed her and derailed her plans to become the first swimmer to make the 110-mile crossing
without a shark cage. Her lips were swollen Monday, as in the past, when she emerged from the waters off Key West, but the 64-year-old American endurance swimmer managed a tight smile for supporters and said one word: "Seawater." And this time, she was victorious.

"She freaking made it," her website trumped, along with the words "Party time." The stinging sea life that had plagued her four previous attempts to swim the Florida Straits— and the attempts of other swimmers trying to complete the same stretch — failed to appear until the final hours of her journey. That left Nyad free to concentrate on defeating the elements and persevere through about 53 hours in the water until she could step on dry land.
. . . .




"I always thought she could do it given her internal energy, her mental and physical strength, her will of iron," Jose Miguel Diaz Escrich, the Hemingway Marina commodore who helped organize the Cuba side of Nyad's multiple attempts, said Monday after Nyad landed in Florida.
"More than the athletic feat, she wants to send a message of peace, love, friendship and happiness ... between the people of the United States and Cuba," he added. Australian Susie Maroney successfully swam the Strait in 1997 with a shark cage, which besides protection from the predators, has a drafting effect that pulls a swimmer along.

. . .

In 1978, Walter Poenisch, an Ohio baker, claimed to have made the swim using flippers and a snorkel. Critics say there was insufficient independent documentation to verify his claim. Nyad first garnered national attention in 1975 when she swam the 28 miles around the island of Manhattan in just under eight hours. In 1979 she swam the 102 miles from North Bimini, Bahamas, to Juno Beach, Fla., in 27.5 hours.

Nyad is also an author of three books, a motivational speaker and has been a reporter and commentator for NPR.

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