Posts by Diana Nyad

Diana and Jackie Onassis

Posted by Diana Nyad on Jul 25, 2011 in Blog | Comments Off

Diana and Jackie Onassis

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis declared her “My hero” when they first met in person, a moment that took up the entire front page of the New York Post the following morning. She was everybody’s hero for swimming around Manhattan Island in 1975.

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Does time seem to speed up as you get older?

Posted by Diana Nyad on May 5, 2011 in Blog | 3 comments

Photo by Ron Baers I guess when you’re young, teens and 20′s, you have no perspective, no concept of the short length of your life, so there is no angst about the passing of time. For me, even though there was always an existential suffering of not being able to stop the clock (a la Charlie Chaplin desperately holding onto the hands of the clock), I think the real pressure started at about 50 or 55. I felt 60 in the real future. It’s not that I don’t feel great because I do. I couldn’t feel any healthier, stronger, more confident, more vital. But I am almost...

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Should ballroom dancing be included in the Olympic Games?

Posted by Diana Nyad on Apr 18, 2011 in Blog | 2 comments

  What do you think? Should ballroom dancing be included in the Olympic Games? Don’t laugh. There’s a considerable worldwide movement to make ballroom dancing an Olympic event. Each host of the Games is allowed to present one demonstration sport, not for medals, but for future consideration for inclusion. The Sydney, Australia Games in 2000 chose ballroom. My mom was a champion ballroom dancer. Yesterday was (would have been 86) mom’s birthday and I thought about Lucy quite a bit during my 13-hour training swim here in St Maarten. Especially as we went into the night...

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Diana, Bonnie and the Manatee

Posted by Diana Nyad on Apr 12, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments

  Here are Bonnie and I in a delightful moment with a friendly manatee who dropped by our boat after a training session. Touching these social and sweet animals in the wild is frowned upon in Florida but this big teddy bear came to us and just didn’t want to swim away. We gave her a fresh water hose and she literally held it in her “hands” and sipped that cool water for more than 45 minutes! The joy of communing with my fellow sea...

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Team SXM – St. Maarten

Posted by Diana Nyad on Apr 7, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments

While training in St Maarten, I have a four people helping me, from the macro problems to the small details. They’re called Team SXM (the travel shorhand for St Maarten) and 3 of the 4 are here in this picture. In the back, the big blonde bear, is David Marchant. David’s an Englishman who has captained boats all over the world’s oceans all his life. He will be my main navigator on the Cuba swim and I do believe there’s nobody on the planet who could guide me across with his same knowledge and instincts. His wife, the smiling blonde here, is Maya, our main boat captain....

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