KEY WEST, Fla. – A decade after swimming the treacherous passage from Cuba to Key West, Diana Nyad returned Sunday to the seashore the place she finished her epic feat, becoming a member of in the free up of a sea turtle rehabilitated at the Florida Keys’ Turtle Hospital
Nyad and her Cuba swim expedition chief Bonnie Stoll helped go back “Rocky,” a 120-pound (54 kilogram) feminine inexperienced sea turtle, to the Atlantic Ocean at Key West’s Smathers Beach as they marked the anniversary along with her former improve crew.
On Labor Day 2013, just about 2,000 other folks had covered the seashore to welcome Nyad as she got here ashore after her 111-mile (178-kilometer) odyssey, a nonstop swim lasting 52 hours and 54 mins throughout the Florida Straits from Havana.
Succeeding on her 5th try at age 64, Nyad changed into the first individual to swim from Cuba to the Keys without a shark cage — regardless of struggling with stinging jellyfish, nausea and different bodily and psychological demanding situations.
She joined body of workers from the Turtle Hospital to hold Rocky throughout the sand on Sunday to the water’s edge.
“The thing I like about them is that they eat jellyfish,” quipped Nyad, relating to the nutrition of inexperienced sea turtles in the wild. “I wish we could have trained Rocky to swim right next to me and eat all the jellyfish that we came upon going across.”
Rescued in January via Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission officials and transported to the sanatorium, Rocky required an eight-hour intestinal surgical operation, respiring therapies, a blood transfusion and months of drugs to continue to exist.
After being guided into the water, Rocky swam clear of the seashore earlier than diving down into the Atlantic as Nyad, Stoll and a number of other hundred spectators applauded. Among them have been greater than 30 of Nyad’s Cuba swim improve team that returned to Key West for the tenth anniversary birthday party.
Other weekend occasions in Key West additionally marked the anniversary together with a Saturday seashore celebration the place Nyad and crew participants took turns sharing their reminiscences of the swim.
Nyad’s swim has been became a new feature film, “Nyad,” starring Annette Bening as the swimmer and Jodie Foster as Stoll, her buddy and teacher.