Approaching Storms Threaten Diana Nyad’s 5th, and Final, Attempt at Cuba-Florida Swim

Diana Nyad, who departed from Cuba Saturday on her 5th, and what she says is her final attempt, at swimming from Cuba to Key West, Florida, is currently under threats of an extreme lightning storm that sits just 4 miles away.

In an update from her support team, dated tonight at 10:22 PM, they said that they were monitoring the storm very closely, with some brilliant photos being posted on their blog.

Nyad is taking this 5th swim armed with a new weapon: a jellyfish suit. Though the 110 mile swim, expected to take just over 50 hours, is seen by many as a doable accomplishment, every previous attempt at tackling it has been done in by environmental factors: storms, jellyfish (Nyad has been derailed by jellys, as was Chloe McCardell who attempted it earlier this summer).

Susie Maroney remains the only person to successfully navigate the distance, though she did so in a shark cage. Doing so without any such protections has been the latest challenge, though it will remain up to “the community” at large to decide where Nyad’s latest attempt, if successful, will fall: she is making this attempt in a full wet-suit and jellyfish guard for her face. This suit, while protecting her from certain dangers, prevents its own challenges, including impeding the ability of her body to cool itself and impeding free motion.

Nyad is 12 hours into the swim, and still going well. The report is that she is currently taking 47 strokes per minute, down just slightly from her initial 50-per-minute pace.

The current tracking, as of midnight eastern, shows that she’s swum roughly 25 miles, though it hasn’t been a direct path to Key West (from starting point to current location looks to be slightly less, perhaps 20 miles).

Track her progress on her home page here.