Endurance swimmer Diana Nyad dove into Cuban waters on Saturday with plans to walk up a Key West beach on Wednesday, her sixty-third birthday. Sadly, after covering about half the distance over 60 hours, she has climbed out of the water.
This was Nyad’s fourth attempt. Last September, she covered 82 miles (in around 40 hours) before jellyfish drove her from the water. This time, she was hit by an unholy trinity of lightning storms, sharks and more damned jellyfish. (According to her website, Nyad “was stung by box jellyfish nine times on Monday night alone, with sharks surrounding her as a team of divers labored for hours in the darkness to discourage them away.”) And her tongue was swelling up from the salt. And a squall had blown her off course.
The website recounts that she was eager to get back into the water but was overruled by her support team as an even larger storm cell approached.
A lesser spirit might take the recent disappointment, combined with the other aborted attempts, as a message that someone eligible to file for Social Security should not be attempting to swim over 100 miles through shark- and jellyfish-infested waters. And Nyad has said that this will be her last effort.
But this is what Nyad said the last time.
Photo of Diana Nyad by Christi Barli via www.diananyad.com.
