Veteran long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad will take on time and Mother Nature when she jumps into the Florida Straits on Sunday to begin what would be a world record swim from Cuba to Florida.
The 61-year-old American tried the grueling 103-mile (166 km) journey in 1978 when she was 28, but failed in the face of winds and eight-foot (2.5-metre) waves that weather forecasters say should not be a factor this time.
Nyad was scheduled to leave from Havana on Sunday evening, when the sea was expected to be smooth and windless, with hopes of getting to Key West in about 60 hours.
The swim has been done before, by Australian Susan Maroney in May 1997, but Nyad's claim to a world record will be that unlike Maroney, she is doing it without a shark cage in the strait's warm, shark-infested waters. Maroney was only 22, but Nyad said her comparatively advanced age is one of the reasons she will try the swim.
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