Update
September 2, 2013 at 4am. Swim Time: 43:00
Reported by: Alex de Cordoba

We can see the lights of Key West growing brighter and brighter before us. Diana is swimming strong after 43 hours non-stop. She knows where she is and it’s giving her added strength.

Our navigator John Bartlett is consulting closely with the other captains to plan the best route into Key West. There are tides, eddys, currents, shipping lanes, reefs and swarms of jellyfish to consider.

As soon as we have a reasonable estimate of when and where Diana is headed, we will let you know.

ONWARD!!!

 

Hi all, Chris Moschini here, Web Developer at Brass Nine Design, the company that maintains Diana’s website. I came across some comments on some of the blog postings here wondering about the timing of blog posts, the map, etc, and how close to real-time they are. As Diana gets closer to shore I bet a lot of people are hoping to hear the moment she hits land, so I wanted to talk a little about how the site works.

How we’ve gotten blog posts to the site has varied year to year, but this year Diana has a team on the boats following Diana, blogging directly to the site via a satellite net connection, and a simple little tool we put together that lets you tie position to a blog post. So when you’re reading a blog post, you’re usually reading it as it happens. Occasionally that connection can get flaky though, or posts can take time to write – then you will see a little delay. The team does also sleep from time to time.

I should also mention we mark the time of posting in EDT – Eastern time – because that’s where Diana’s swimming. So, you’ll have to adjust a little if you’re on the west coast. For example if you read that an event occurred at 2am and you’re in California, subtract 3 hours to get 11pm your time.

For Diana’s position, we’re actually using 2 satellite GPS trackers, that ping the site directly every 10 minutes or so. This gives us her location in 5-10 minute intervals, depending on how the timing on the 2 trackers is skewing. The position you see on the homepage is not only a direct feed of those trackers, it also keeps updating while the page is open – so that point on the map will actually move without hitting refresh.

Typically when Diana attempts to cross the Caribbean, millions of visits pour onto the site. That can make real-time updates a real challenge – in fact her old site would just collapse under the load. To cope with all the traffic, the site has a few layers around it to protect it. First, you have the data on the site itself – if we let everyone just get direct access to that, we’d be in the same position as the old site. Around that we have what’s called a cache, which does nothing but serve requests as quickly as possible with a copy of the data it keeps on hand. Some parts of the site are set to 1 minute, most to 10 minutes. Around that we have one more layer called a CDN, a global network of servers we rent time on that keeps another copy – a copy of a copy – also set to between 1 and 10 minutes. So, when you visit the homepage and see Diana’s location, you’re seeing a copy stored on a server near you, which is a copy of the cache back at the site, which is itself a temporary copy of the actual real-time data.

The short version being: There has to be a small delay for visitors around the world to get access to the site. But, the ~10 minute delay of all those layers means everyone gets near real-time data on a courageous swimmer out there in the Atlantic ocean. Pretty cool.

Status Update
1:27am Monday September 2, 2013. Swim time: 40:27
Reported by: Candace Hogan

The Diana Nyad Extreme Dream Team got the flotilla back in normal formation quickly, as soon as it was decided that we were free of the storm. The exchange of independent observers was accomplished, and after arriving from the Voyager onto the social media team boat, Dreams Do Come True, Independent Observer Roger McVeigh explained what it was like on Diana’s escort boat during the storm, going into squall protocol.

It happened quick and it came together in a hurry, said Roger. Diana was great, they just circled her and she kept on swimming. The shark team was amazing: let’s go to it, and everyone was in action. It was well organized, that’s for sure.

Eyes on Diana the whole time, running around the boat, the rest of the shark guys all five of them were there in a flash.

They got in formation: a big circle of lights around Diana and they just started drifting away.

By the way, Bonnie just told Diana “See those lights? Let’s go!”

 

Update Reported by Candace Hogan
September 1, 2013 at 11pm. Swim Time: 38:00

At 38 hours into the swim, 11 p.m. at night, winds rose suddenly reaching 23 knots twenty minutes later. At that time, the Nyad team went into squall protocol to bring the kayakers out of the water (kayaks are uncontrollable under these circumstances) for their safety. The shark divers, who have been keeping watch over Diana along with the kayakers, are staying with Diana, with more quickly being added.

Everybody on board Voyager is battened down and Diana is still swimming strong, says Ops Chief John Berry.

Prepare for the worst, hoping for the best,î is the response over the radio.

All five boats are keeping a safe distance from each other but we can all still see each others lights.

Hearing over VHF radio, communication between the five boats in our flotilla: reports saying that this isolated thunderstorm, fairly typical in the Gulf Stream, is breaking into two little pieces, and there’s another one aimed right at us, 8 miles out at 34:45 swim time. I don’t know if you can see Diana or not but she is still making her way. We can almost see the glow of Key West.

From shark divers Zodiac boat: we’re going to do a safe pass-by down wind, to check on Diana and our divers, and Bonnie wants to talk to us.

Does every individual in the water have a light on them?

Roger. Affirmative.

Hour 38:54 swim time, down to 14.4 knots; 39:02, down to 13.5 knots.

Warning to shark divers and Diana: In a mile we will go from 1800 feet of water, down to a 1000, down to 900, which could spell danger from jellyfish, so shark divers and Diana keep your head as high out of the water as possible.

Everyone I can see or hear seems calm, in control, and confident that the weather will pass swiftly enough.

Diana Nyad’s last night in Havana, Cuba, before the swim start
Friday August 30, 2013
Reported by Candace Lyle Hogan

After a day so hectic it would take most of us mortals a week to recover from—up before dawn in Key West for a flight to Miami, then a flight to Cuba, a press conference, a last group meeting with her team of 35 (and this, after two previous days with mostly sleepless nights filling gaps in the team from those who couldn’t make the sudden departure on a holiday weekend), finally Diana sat down for a quiet meal with close friends: Head Handler Bonnie Stoll, who will stay by her side from the escort boat Voyager for as much as 70 hours; Kathy Loretta, who has helped with arrangements in Cuba since 2010; and me, who’s been on her every attempt to swim the 103 plus miles from Cuba to Florida—this will be the fifth—starting in 1978.)

Diana ate spaghetti with garlic and olive oil, just what she wanted, and drank some water. She appeared relatively calm, perhaps already mirroring the peacefulness of the waters promised by weather forecasters. She yawned.

“I’d like to get back to the room,” she said, “pack a couple things, then if you gave me one of those short shoulder massages, just 15 minutes or so, I think I could fall asleep by 9.”

Not too much to ask. Twelve hours from then she’d be jumping into Havana Bay, not to touch boat or dry land again for 3 days and 3 nights of swimming across the Florida Straits. “After these past few days,” I said, “I can actually see how even this swim could be a relief.”

Back in her room, she got into blue jammies, and placed on the bedstand next to her some water, an eye mask, and about a dozen New York Times crossword puzzles. “Look at the stack I brought,” she said, “isn’t that ridiculous—when it takes me 3 days to do just one!” She used to do them with my mother when she was alive. Now she does them with Bonnie. We’ve known each other 37 years; Bonnie has known her just about as long.

“I feel just a slight scratchiness at the back of my throat,” Diana said, “and some other signs of the beginning of a cold, but I think if I get a really good sleep, I can beat it.”

The light was still on when I left, with Bonnie yet to return to the room for her own much-needed sleep, but it was not 9 p.m. yet. “We’re still doing it,” Diana smiled. “Since 1978.”

I will not have a chance to ask her whether that gift of sleep did come. The next time we see her she’ll be being the greatest long distance swimmer who ever lived or ever will for one more one last time.