Diana Nyad, blown off course by storms, back on track

Diana Nyad was stung by jellyfish and battered by storms Sunday. But three days into her Cuba-to-Florida swim, Diana Nyad is swimming at 50 strokes per minute.

|
AP Photo/Diana Nyad via the Florida Keys News Bureau, Christi Barli
Endurance swimmer Diana Nyad swims in the Florida Straits between Cuba and the Florida Keys Sunday, Aug. 19, 2012. Nyad is endeavoring to become the first swimmer to transit the Florida Straits from Cuba to the Keys without a shark cage.

Swimmer Diana Nyad was back on track and doing well Monday after a night of storms and jellyfish stings roughed up her bid for a record swim from Cuba to Florida.

Nyad, who turns 63 Wednesday, is making her third attempt since last summer to become the first person to swim across the Straits of Florida without a shark cage. She also made a failed try with a cage in 1978.

Nyad's operations manager Mark Sollinger told the NBC "Today" show that things couldn't be better after the sun rose on her third day in the water. She left Havana on Saturday headed for the Florida Keys.

RECOMMENDED: Eight fascinating facts from 'Swim'

She's accompanied by a support team in boats. They tweeted Sunday night that a storm blew Nyad off course temporarily and that "all hell broke loose" in the squall. Nyad also suffered jellyfish stings.

But by morning, Nyad was swimming a strong 50 strokes per minute, Sollinger said on NBC by phone from a boat shadowing Nyad.

"Her stroke looks good and we're moving in the right direction," he said.

Australian Susie Maroney successfully swam the Straits in 1997, but she used a cage. This June another Australian, Penny Palfrey, made it 79 miles toward Florida without a cage before strong currents forced her to abandon the attempt.

Nyad has already endured jellyfish stings on the current attempt. Stings forced her to cut short her second of two attempts last year as toxins built up in her system.

A kayak-borne apparatus shadowing Nyad helps keep sharks at bay by generating a faint electric field that is not noticeable to humans. A team of handlers is always on alert to dive in and distract any sharks that make it through.

Nyad has been training for three years and is in peak shape, according to friend and trainer Bonnie Stoll.

The team expects Nyad will take at least 60 hours to complete the swim, meaning she would arrive in the Florida Keys sometime Tuesday.

She takes periodic short breaks to rest, hydrate and eat high-energy foods like peanut butter.

RECOMMENDED: Eight fascinating facts from 'Swim'

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Diana Nyad, blown off course by storms, back on track
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0820/Diana-Nyad-blown-off-course-by-storms-back-on-track
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe