Epic swim starts
NZPA Ortejaso, Cuba The marathon swimmer, Diana Nyad, was last night struggling with waves and fatigue in a daring Uskm duel with the sea on her wav from I’ne Cuban shore to the Florida Keys. The size of the waves was the only thing that could de feat the swimmer, said Mr Ken Gundersen, her operations manager. Waves over Im high greeted i Ms Nyad yesterday as she peeled down to two swim suits. She told her crew: "I guess I'll see you all in 2j days/'
and stepped into the water about 80km west of Havana From there, she faced a 60hour ordeal of exhaustion, seasickness and hallucination, hoping for landfall somewhere in Tie chain of flat islands that curl south-west from the tip of Florida. If she succeeds, she will have made the longest open-water swim on record. Ms Nyad's exact position was not known last night because of an unexplained radio fault, but Mr Gundersen said the U.S. Coast Guard had picked up a faint signal at midnight that incidated she was about 29km from Cuba.
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Press, 15 August 1978, Page 6
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182Epic swim starts Press, 15 August 1978, Page 6
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