ANNA MARIA ISLAND – Onward!
That’s the motto that long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad had imprinted on her teammates’ T-shirts, and on her soul, as she made her fifth attempt to swim 110 miles from Cuba to Key West in 2013.
The film, “Nyad,” with Annette Bening in the starring role, debuted Nov. 3 on Netflix, celebrating the victory, and the journey.
“Our team lived by the credo onward! We failed. We got back up, learned from our experience and pressed ever onward!” Nyad said.
In 1978, at age 28, Nyad swam for 41 hours and 49 minutes through heavy weather, jellyfish stings and recurring vomiting in a shark cage that hindered her progress when three of its four engines died, falling short of her goal.
The following year, she made history, accomplishing the longest continuous swim in history – 102.5 miles – from Bimini to Florida.
Then for more than three decades, the woman who had broken the 50-year-old record for swimming around Manhattan Island gave up on her Cuba-to-Key West dream and just stopped swimming.
Until she turned 60.
You’re lucid, but you drift off into deep philosophical places. ‘What is the meaning of life?’ ‘Is there a God?’ ‘What am I doing with my life?’ – Diana Nyad
The milestone transformed her swimmer’s burnout into a consuming fire, a drive to make the most of the rest of her life, and to inspire other 60-somethings who had given up on their dreams to dive back into life.
Once she got wet, it all came back to her, the metronomic activity, taking strokes in rhythm with favorite songs she sang in her head and the descent into an alpha state, where hallucinations sometimes arise; she thought she saw lizards in the bottom of her shark cage in 1978.
Nyad began training and made two attempts in 2011 to swim the distance from Cuba to Key West. After those efforts and another in 2012 were cut short by box jellyfish stings and storms, Nyad finally reached her goal in 2013 at age 64, becoming the first person to swim from Cuba to the Keys without a shark cage.
The film celebrates her dedication and what she learned leading up to and during that 52 hours and 54 minutes in the water.
“One, we should never, ever give up. Two, we’re never too old to chase our dreams. Three, it looks like a solitary sport, but it takes a team,” Nyad told a cheering crowd in Key West after she set foot on the beach in 2013, portrayed in the film by actors, followed by actual footage of the event.
The team supporting her numbered more than 30 people, including experts on navigation, weather, sharks and nutrition, and her personal coach and friend, Bonnie Stoll, portrayed in the film by Jodie Foster.
Nyad’s search for a suitable boat to accompany her on her swim led to Coral Island Yachts, which built Voyager I and recommended it for the project. Team member Dee Brady, who captained Voyager I during Nyad’s training and final swim, is a former sales assistant with The Anna Maria Island Sun, which interviewed Nyad in 2010.
Nyad began training in local Tampa Bay and Gulf of Mexico waters in 2010 for her first try for the swim in 33 years.
During a long-distance swim, thoughts become as deep as the ocean below, she said.
“You’re lucid,” she said, “but you drift off into deep philosophical places. ‘What is the meaning of life?’ ‘Is there a God?’ ‘What am I doing with my life?’ ”
The Florida native said she chose to make the swim from Cuba to Key West because of the “magical history between Cuba and the U.S.”
Relatively few Americans visit Cuba under U.S.-imposed travel restrictions, but the swim was personal, not political, she told The Sun.
“I didn’t make it all those years ago,” Nyad said.
