Sixty-four-year-old US long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad became the first person to swim across the Florida Straits from Cuba without a shark cage, succeeding on her fifth attempt at the feat on Monday.
Her face sunburned and lips swollen, with barely enough energy to speak, Nyad waded ashore at Key West, Florida, after a 53-hour swim and told onlookers: “We should never, ever give up... You never are too old to chase your dreams.”
Nyad completed the estimated 177km journey after departing from Havana on Saturday morning. She set a record for the longest ocean swim without a shark cage or flippers, her crew said.
Photo: Reuters
She was met by crowds in Key West who surrounded her, snapping photographs, as they enjoyed sunny beach weather on the Labor Day holiday.
Helpers immediately placed Nyad on a stretcher and hydrated her with an intravenous drip before she was taken to a hospital.
Nyad had been trying to achieve the crossing for 35 years, describing it on her Web site as her “Xtreme Dream,” and seemed determined to prove The Beatles were right that there is plenty to live for “when I’m 64.”
“With all the experience I have in this ocean, I never knew I would suffer the way I did,” Nyad told CNN in an interview.
The first day was especially difficult because of winds and “even people with iron will quit when its really tough,” said Nyad, her lips swollen from exposure and from the mouthpiece of a prosthetic mask used to protect her from deadly box jellyfish.
She said she told herself: “Forget about surface up... With your left hand push Cuba back and push Florida toward you.”
Nyad’s team said her attempt benefited from several key factors, including calm seas, the surprising lack of jellyfish and favorable currents in the powerful Gulf Stream that flows eastward through the Florida Straits.
The marathon swimmer had said this would be her final attempt, this time equipped with the mask, as well as a body suit to better protect her from box jellyfish that forced her to end one of two attempted crossings last year.
A team of ocean kayakers and divers accompanied Nyad on her journey, dragging an electronic device in the water that emitted a current to repel sharks.
Nyad has spent much of her life in the water. She described in a 2011 YouTube documentary how her father told her when she was a young girl that she was destined to swim, saying her last name is derived from the Greek word for water nymphs or female swimmers.
The Florida Straits had been conquered twice previously, both times with the aid of a protective cage. The second time, in 1997, the cage glided on ocean currents and enabled Australian Susie Maroney, 22, to make the journey in just 25 hours.
Nyad made her first attempt at the crossing aged 28 in 1978, when she gave up after covering 122km in 42 hours with the aid of a shark cage.
With Key West in her sights on Monday, Nyad halted briefly about 3km offshore to thank her support team.
“This is a lifelong dream of mine and I’m very, very glad to be with you,” she said, according to her Web site. “So let’s get going so we can have a whopping party.”
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
Millions of dollars have poured into bets on who will win the US presidential election after a last-minute court ruling opened up gambling on the vote, upping the stakes on a too-close-to-call race between US Vice President Kamala Harris and former US president Donald Trump that has already put voters on edge. Contracts for a Harris victory were trading between 48 and 50 percent in favor of the Democrat on Friday on Interactive Brokers, a firm that has taken advantage of a legal opening created earlier this month in the country’s long running regulatory battle over election markets. With just a month
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
RSS