Swimming with sharks

Diane Nyad was annoyed at turning 60, so she decided to revisit a challenge she set herself over 20 years ago: to swim from Cuba to Florida. Without a shark cage. By ELAINE LAFFERTYin Florida

DIANA NYAD has waited 30 years for this moment. It has to be perfect. She is waiting for the arrival of a nautical concoction called the Doldrums. So what’s waiting another day, or week?

It’s nerve-wracking, is what it is.

We are in the Florida Keys, a ribbon of land three hours south of Miami, at the southernmost point of the continental US. With an abundance of open-air bars and chubby Midwestern tourists slathered in sunblock and mojitos, it feels like an unlikely setting for an endurance expedition or, as Nyad calls it, “the mission”. But there is compelling reason to be here and only here: Key West’s proximity to Cuba.

Sometime in the next couple of weeks, or it could be today, the red alert will go out to Nyad’s team of 25 people. That will mean that a combination of ideal sea and weather conditions have arrived in the Florida Straits. The team will head to Havana, Cuba.

The mission will launch from there. And Nyad, who turns 62 this month, will attempt to swim almost 166km from Cuba to Florida. Without a shark cage.

It has never been done.

No, she is not crazy. Or perhaps she is, in the manner that only extreme people accomplish extreme achievements.

From 1969 to 1979, Nyad was the greatest long-distance swimmer in the world. She was feted and cheered. She regularly broke world records, including what had been a 50-year mark for circling Manhattan Island, setting the new time of seven hours and 57 minutes. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis declared her "my hero" when they first met in person, a moment that took up the entire front page of the New York Post. In 1979, she completed the longest swim in history, making the 165km journey from the island of Bimini, in the Bahamas, to Florida. That night, CBS Evening Newsopened its broadcast with the word magnificent, followed by her name.

A career in television and radio beckoned, as did a few fitness books and a fitness company called BravaBody that has whipped more than a few Hollywood celebrities into shape.

But Nyad had one particular “failure” that never faded from her heart: the Cuba swim.

She attempted it in 1978. A raging sea with waves almost three metres high and unfavourable currents pushed her off course, and after swimming for 41 hours and 49 minutes, Nyad was pulled from the water. After 1979, she never swam another stroke. She truly thought she was done, she says.

But then she turned 60 years old.

“I was annoyed at turning 60,” she says. “You know there are 77 million baby boomers in the US. We still feel relevant and powerful. That’s what this swim is about. It’s about every person reaching their own other shore, whether it’s writing that novel you’ve always thought about or taking that trip. Do it. Fulfil your dream.” And thus, the mission.

It’s been 18 months of training. Swimming every other day in the Caribbean and, since June, the Florida Keys, some sessions lasting as long as 24 hours. Training on dry land with 100-mile bicycle rides. Relentless fundraising and media interviews.

Nyad is ready.

"I am slower than I was in my 20s, but in many ways I am in the best, strongest mental and physical condition of my life," she says. Plus, she has her repertoire of songs she sings in her head during long swims: the Beatles, Janis Joplin, obscure tunes from old television shows. A favourite song, Ticket to Ride,takes 7,929 strokes, she says.

In no particular order, then, the challenges are: 60-70 hours of continuous swimming without sleep; sharks; hypothermia; dehydration; jellyfish stings; depleted electrolytes that could lead to cardiac arrest. Those are the givens. If Nyad completes the swim, she will emerge from the salt water on to a Florida beach with a tongue too swollen to speak. Despite being covered in sunscreen and lanolin, she will be cut and bleeding from the areas where her swim cap and her swimsuit have chafed. She will have lost a significant amount of body weight: in 1978 she lost 29 pounds in those 41 hours. She will likely spend two days in hospital recovering.

Bonnie Stoll, a former world-champion racquetball player, is chief of Nyad’s team, which includes shark spotters, meteorologists, navigators, kayakers, doctors and nurses. Stoll will be her primary handler in the water. Every 90 minutes, Nyad will be fed through a plastic tube tossed to her by Stoll. She’ll receive 280g to 300g of hydration. And Stoll will be watching her like a hawk.

“She swims about 53 strokes a minute. If she slows down to, say, 47 strokes, we’ll know she needs more hydration,” says Stoll. “If she’s nauseous, she’ll have a sip of cola.”

Stoll will also watch for signs of sensory deprivation and hallucinations, which are inevitable. During one practice swim, Nyad was startled by something narrow and dark beside her, and feared a shark. It broke her stride. Now the kayakers, who carry an electronic shark shield to discourage predators, know to keep their distance from Nyad. “I’ve encountered sharks before, and they are mostly curious. Between the electrical shark shield and my kayakers, I feel safe. My bigger concerns are physical . . . can this body hold up for 60 hours?”

As the swim is expected to take at least this much time, will Stoll sleep? “She has been my best friend for 30 years. If she can stay awake for 60 hours, so can I,” she says.

The Doldrums, the low-pressure system that creates near-waveless conditions, could arrive any day now. Diana Nyad, perhaps the most muscled and determined 61-year-old on the planet, is ready.

Elaine Lafferty is a US-based journalist who will be accompanying Nyad’s team on the swim.

Nyad by numbers

165.8Number of kilometres Nyad plans to swim from Cuba to Key West

165Distance, in kilometres, Nyad swam from the Bahamas to Florida, in 1979, to set a world distance record for both genders

13.15Number of kilograms Nyad lost during her world-record-setting endurance swim

54Strokes per minute Nyad swims

7:57The time it took Nyad to swim 43.5km around Manhattan island in 1975

41:47The length of time, in hours and minutes Nyad spent in the water during her 1978 swim between Cuba and Florida, before weather conditions and navigational problems forced her to quit

6.8Number of kilograms of muscle Nyad put on in the past year while training for the Cuba-Florida swim

9000Number of Calories Nyad consumes each day while in training. Her breakfast of champions: eggs, porridge, fruit and a protein shake

2.4Nyad's speed in the water, in kilometres per hour, during distance swims

25Number of members of her support team for the Cuba-Florida swim

2Number of kayakers who will paddle alongside Nyad at all times to protect her from sharks

2000Estimated number of times Nyad sang The Beverly Hillbilliestheme song in her head, to amuse herself during a recent long training swim

30Minimum ocean water temperature, in degrees Celsius, required for Nyad to swim without danger of hypothermia

62Nyad's age when she celebrates her next birthday on August 22nd

Source: secondact.com