"Find a way." - That's the mantra Diana Nyad, a 64 year old woman had this year. And that's exactly what she did.
(Full story here :
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/02/world/americas/diana-nyad-cuba-florida-swim/index.html?hpt=hp_c1)
On Monday, Nyad became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a protective cage, swimming for 53 hours after jumping into the ocean in Havana for her fifth try in 35 years.
"You have a dream 35 years ago -- doesn't come to fruition, but you move on with life. But it's somewhere back there. Then you turn 60, and your mom just dies, and you're looking for something. And the dream comes waking out of your imagination," Nyad said.
Diana Nyad became the first person to swim the 103 miles from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. The endurance swimmer achieved her lifelong ambition of conquering the Straits of Florida on Monday, September 2, after four earlier setbacks.
"With all the experience I have, especially in this ocean, I never knew I would suffer the way I did," she said. "For 49 hours the wind just blew like heck, and it was rough." At one point, she was vomiting because she had so much salt water in her system and was shivering. She sang lullabies to help her relax.
"It was really rough that first day, Saturday, after the start and I just said: 'Forget about the surface up. Get your hands in somehow, and with your left hand, say, push Cuba back, and push Florida towards you,'" Nyad said.
Through it all, she held her mantra close: "You don't like it. It's not doing well. Find a way."
"I got three messages," an exhausted and happy Nyad told reporters. Her face was sunburned and swollen.
"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's a team," she said.
The swim was a long-awaited triumph for Nyad, who was making her fifth attempt since 1978 and her fourth since turning 60.
The first four tries were marked by gut-wrenching setbacks; if the rough, strength-sapping seas didn't force her to quit, an hours-long asthma attack or paralyzing and excruciating jellyfish stings did.
But for this swim, besides donning a suit meant to protect her against her jellyfish nemesis, she wore a special mask to prevent jellyfish stings to her tongue, a key factor in her failed attempt last year.
Nyad, who was 29 when she first tried the swim, said last week that she wanted to show that "you can dream at any age."
"This time, I am 64. So, the years of my life are shorter to the end," she said at a news conference in Havana on Friday. "So this time I am, all the way across ... going to think about all those life lessons that came up during the swim."
