Box jellyfish stings, potential shark attacks, and 103 miles of swimming in choppy waters—such is the life of American endurance athlete Diana Nyad.
Nyad, 62, is attempting to become the first person to swim across the waters between Cuba and Florida without a shark cage. Beginning her journey Saturday afternoon, she departed from Havana, the capital of Cuba, according to her website.
On Sunday, Nyad appeared to be making steady progress, according to her team in a post on her Twitter account.
“Diana is swimming backstroke right now leading with the cap-covered part of her head to minimize contact,” part of the post reads.
As of Sunday, she reported getting stung numerous times by box jellyfish, but she was medically treated by an expert while still in the water, her website said.
An observer of her swim, Steve Munatones, said in a post on Nyad’s website, “Diana has been stung down her back, lips, and her forehead and hand. Yet she’s traveling much better, covering more ground than in her last two swims.”
He added, “She’s plainly coherent; she’s conversing with people. The density of the stinging organisms is decreasing a lot, but Angel says that the box jellyfish can come here at anytime. And you don’t know when or where.”
In the first 18 hours, Nyad swam 21.7 miles and was still making strokes at a regular pace, her team said.
While swimming, Nyad has employed techniques to keep her occupied throughout the day and night such as singing songs in her head—including ones from The Beatles—and counting. On Nyad’s website, her team said, “It’s a good sign when the swimmer is singing.”
“I do some counting progressions and numbers and sing a Beatles song, any one I can think of at the end. ... I just sang the 48th one. I don’t know them all by heart,” she said on video while in the water, conversing with her team during a quick break.
In video footage on her website, Nyad appeared to be in good spirits, making small talk with her crew about the swimming events in the recent London Olympics. “NBC didn’t treat it like one of the big events,” she said.
The water has also been somewhat difficult to swim through as her arm strokes have hit turbulence 36,000 times, causing physical trauma over a long period of time and making for a long and harsh journey, her team said.
“If this swim is the equivalent of five English Channels, and I think it is, in terms of time, she’s just swum one English Channel, 25 percent of it backstroke,” Munatones said in his post.
When she first attempted this swim in September 2011, Nyad stopped short after spending more than 40 hours swimming because she endured two stings from Portuguese man-of-war.
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