Well, it’s a shame, but it happens. Diana Nyad, the 61-year-old who was looking to swim from Cuba to Florida, won’t be setting that record any time soon. Nyad was forced to abandon her journey 29 hours into her swim, at about the halfway point. She was pulled onto the boat by her rescue team, vomiting and suffering from shoulder pain, asthma, and exhaustion.
“To swim between these two neighbors, Cuba & the United States, who’ve been strangers all these years, is a moving thing for me,” said Nyad. However, she isn’t sad about her aborted journey, adding, “I am not sad. It was absolutely the right call.”
While Nyad had good weather, as it turns out, what’s going on in the water is as important as what’s happening on the surface of the water. Nyad’s big foe for this trip was ocean swells and, of course, currents. Strong currents pushed her 15 miles off course, and forced her to struggle to gain steam and move ahead in her quest. By the end, she was just too tired to go on. Can’t say I blame her.