At 61, Diana Nyad Is Ready to Swim From Cuba to US

(Aug. 29) -- If at first you don't succeed, wait 32 years and try again -- this time without a shark cage.

It was the summer of 1978 when, after spending nearly 42 hours battling 8-foot waves, long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad gave up on her bid to set a new long-distance swimming record by crossing the Straits of Florida between the U.S. and Cuba.

Now 61, Nyad will attempt to do what she could not when she was 28.

"People my age, we're the rock 'n' roll generation, the protest generation," Nyad told AOL News. "We don't want to go down with out a fight."

Then again, shortly after Nyad failed in her first attempt to swim 103 miles from Cuba to Florida, she gave up distance swimming, the career that brought her worldwide fame. Burned out from a decade of living the life of a competitive athlete, she settled into a multifaceted career as a writer, radio journalist and motivational speaker.

Who could argue if she wanted to rest on her athletic laurels? After all, during her career, Nyad had set numerous records, including her 102.5-mile swim from the Bahamas to Jupiter, Fla. In 1975, when she circled Manhattan Island in a record time of 7 hours, 57 seconds, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis called Nyad "my hero."

After 1979, Nyad says, she didn't swim a single stroke. But then two events that occurred in close proximity caused her to to return to the water: her 60th birthday and the death of her mother at the age of 82.

"I freaked out," Nyad said. "I thought, I'm going to blink and be 82 and be gone.

"I had really started to feel less and less relevant," Nyad said. "I wanted to feel again like my best days were not behind me. I just didn't want to fade away."

In order to help conquer what she describes as the weight of existential angst brought on by the aging process, Nyad looked for a challenge to help motivate her. Immediately, her thoughts returned to the Cuba swim, the one test that had eluded her.

"I wanted to feel unwavering commitment again," Nyad said. "To have what seemed like an impossible goal, and go for it."

For a year, she trained in the waters off Mexico and the Florida Keys, slowly building back her stamina and strength.

Farewell, Shark Cage

Speaking on the phone from Key West, where she is anxiously waiting the arrival of a Cuban visa as well as the return of calm seas, Nyad described yet another twist in her second attempt at the Florida Straits swim: This time she won't be using a shark cage.

That decision might seem needlessly reckless, considering that the waters between Cuba and Florida are teeming with reef, bull and tiger sharks.

"You talk to shark experts, and they tell you that when you're far from shore and making all those splashing noises, you tend to attract sharks who think you're a dying fish," Nyad said.

But the crew members who will paddle beside Nyad in sea kayaks as she makes her swim will be equipped with special devices that will emit electrical waves designed to create a protective buffer zone sharks will not enter.

Nyad said she was shown a video in which a severed horse leg was taken out to sea. Dripping with blood, it attracted hundreds of sharks in the open ocean. But when the device was turned on, no shark approached to claim the leg. When the device was shut off, the sharks swarmed. "Seeing that really sold me," Nyad said.

While other swimmers have since crossed from Cuban to American shores with the aid of a shark cage, no one has yet done so without.

A Legacy Greater Than Records

Assuming the weather, the Cuban government's red tape, her own age and the sharks don't prevent her from reaching her latest goal, Nyad's life will have one more great triumph. But as she has grown older, she says she no longer gives those peaks quite the emphasis that she once did.

"Maybe 30 years ago, if you'd asked me what my greatest accomplishments were, I'd have had a quick answer," Nyad said. "Now, I don't just sit around and conjure memories of past swims. For me it's more of a question of 'Do I contribute?' and 'Who am I as a person?' I try to ask myself if I'm a person that I can be proud of."

And whatever the future holds for Nyad, she believes her return to swimming has already given her back something better than any single record could.

"Yes, I want to reach the shore," Nyad said, "but more important than that, after a year of training, I just don't feel old anymore."