Diana Nyad
You may recall the story of Diana Nyad, the 61-year-old who set out last month to swim from Cuba to Florida. To prepare for the 103-mile swim, Nyad trained for a year and enlisted a posse of experts to help her with nutrition, endurance, weather-tracking, and shark management. With her background as a record-setting open ocean swimmer, Nyad was probably the best-qualified person in her age group to attempt the daunting journey. She had estimated it would take her about 60 hours to complete, but about 30 hours into it, she succumbed to agonizing shoulder pain, an asthma attack, and severe vomiting. Speaking to reporters afterward, Nyad said “I wasn’t the best swimmer I could be — the asthma and the shoulder made sure of that.” Nyad told the New York Times that she hoped her quest would inspire more people her age to take up exercise and live vital, energetic lives.
Laura Dekker
Meanwhile, teen sailor Laura Dekker made it to the halfway point of her global circumnavigation when she sailed into Darwin, Australia late last month. The crossing from Bora Bora was mostly smooth, although her vessel, the Guppy, took a beating from high winds in the last few days and limped into Darwin with shredded sails. Dekker is now resting up in Darwin, fixing equipment, fundraising, and looking forward to celebrating her 16th birthday. Check out her
blog — Dekker’s journal captures her upbeat and courageous personality and shares great anecdotes of high-seas adventure.
Roz Savage
Over in the Indian Ocean, rower Roz Savage is contending with high winds that have capsized her boat several times, even causing it to roll 360 degrees. She is spending her time cleaning up the detritus that results from capsizing and trying to find ways to ease the boredom that comes with downtime. Now 135 days into her journey from Australia to India, Savage must wait for the winds to calm before she attempts to row again. In the meantime, she is playing solitaire and blogging about plastic pollution in our oceans (check out the trailer for Bag It, a documentary in the style of Supersize Me about the serious problems posed by single-use plastic bags).
Photo courtesy Sarah Outen.
Sarah Outen’s round-the-world journey is now solidly underway, with Outen averaging about 150 km (95 miles) per day astride her bike “Hercules” as she wends her way through eastern Europe. Even a bout of food poisoning in the Czech Republic couldn’t dampen Outen’s enthusiastic outlook for long. Her
blog describes bucolic scenes of horse-and-cart farming in the Ukraine, the happy surprise of a night’s lodging with a generous German family, and a “rest night” spent longing for earplugs in a noisy Polish hotel.
Meanwhile, Roz Savage’s solo row across the Indian Ocean has been stymied by an unfortunate series of mechanical problems. Savage’s
blog chronicles the rough start. In late April, salt water began contaminating her automatic water-maker, which can cause catastrophic failure of the machine. Since she was just 20 miles off the coast of Australia (though she had rowed 350 miles from her original launch point), she got a tow back to shore to fix the problem. Last week she headed back out to sea. After just one day, she realized her boat’s battery power was failing. So once again Savage got a tow back to land for another round of repairs. Since May 4, Savage has been rowing away again, jokingly aspiring to be—if not Captain Courageous—then at least Captain Competent. Tricky weather conditions have made for a lot of slow, frustrating days so far, but the gorgeous scenery helps.
Photo courtesy Roz Savage.
