Openly gay Diana Nyad is close to making history by becoming the
first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage.
The 64-year-old Nyad was reportedly less than 10 miles from the
Florida Keys on Monday morning.
“I am about to swim my last two miles in the ocean,” she
said Monday morning as she treaded water. “This is a lifelong
dream of mine and I'm very, very glad to be with you.”
It is the fifth attempt for the endurance swimmer. Nyad has
pledged it will be her last attempt.
Nyad, with a crew of 35 people by her side, has been averaging 2.2
miles per hour since she left Cuba two days ago.
She made her first swim attempt in 1978. Thirty-two years later,
at age 60, she set out once again to pursue the dream which had
eluded her.
“I've been trying since 1950, not just me, all kinds of good
male and female swimmers,” Nyad previously told CBS News. “And
no one has ever made it.”
“I wanted to teach myself at 60 some life lessons. And one of
them is that you don't give up. You shoot for the stars and when
you're up there in the heavens, playing around trying to touch those
stars, you get a lot of satisfaction. And you do tap your
potential.”
On this attempt, Nyad has been swimming with a protective suit and
a customized silicon mask to prevent her from being stung by box
jellyfish. She was stung nine times during a recent attempt before
she was pulled out of the water.